The Creature
by DisMinded
Summary: Peter Parker missed that fateful field trip. He was never bitten by the spider and thus never became Spider-man. But Peter was never destined to lead a normal life, and one way or another Parker luck will have its say...
1. In Medias Res

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I'm making no money off this. Marvel owns Spiderman and all related characters. And while I'm already disclaiming: this is poorly written and has not been proof read by anyone but me. Also, I have the grammar skills of a stoned monkey. So… caveat lector? (Why am I on a Latin kick?).

In Medias Res

Peter found her huddled up against his apartment door, not quite asleep but certainly dozing lightly as the line of drool tracing down her chin attested. Her name was Mary Jane. She went to school with him, had since elementary, and lived in the neighborhood where he had grown up. They had played together from time to time when they were younger and had grown into casual acquaintances, limited to greetings and the occasional brief chats about inconsequential things before they broke of and resumed their usual social orbits. They were both friends with Harry Osborn – though Peter only rated as such because he served as Harry's academic crutch – but that was the extent of their involvement.

So why she would be napping outside of his door at – he checked his watch – eight o'clock on a Saturday night when she surely had something better to do was a bit of a mystery. Peter squatted down and looked at her, wondering what to do. He was tempted to just leave her there, avoid the awkward uncertainty entirely, but his apartment wasn't exactly in the nicest part of town. She could get in trouble just lying there. Besides, she was blocking his doorway and he couldn't get past without waking her.

"Errr… Mary Jane?" he said, hesitantly. She stirred in her almost sleep. "Mary Jane," he said more loudly, and this time she bolted up, alarmed, her green eyes wide and searching as she tried to figure out where she was.

Her eyes locked on him and she visibly relaxed. "Peter," she said. "Long time, no see."

Peter blinked. "Didn't we talk Friday? I said 'hi'; you said 'hi'. We had a whole greeting thing going."

"Well, we talked, but we didn't talk-talk, y;know?"

Peter shrugged. "We never talk-talked. We just talk. I don't seen why you would come down here just for that  
"You've been distant. You go to school but you're somewhere else in your head."

"It's school," Peter said. "Everyone's somewhere else in their head, including most of the teachers."

"You don't really talk to anyone," Mary Jane continued.

"And we're back to talking. I talk to people as much as I ever did."

"Harry misses you. He's failing Algebra without your tutoring sessions."

Peter felt a twinge of guilt at his sometimes friend's plight. "I always meant to start those up again after… but I kept putting it off."

"Well stop it," Mary Jane said. "He'll be lucky to pull of a "B" or a "C" at this rate and you know how his father is."

"Yeah," Peter said. "I know. I'll talk to him about it on Monday."

"Great," Mary Jane smiled brightly and Peter found himself answering that smile with a rare one of his own.

"Is that all?" Peter asked.

"Isn't that enough?" Mary Jane rejoined.

"It's just you could have called me. Harry has my number," Peter said nervously. "I mean, if you just wanted to bully me into studying with Harry."

"I don't bully," Mary Jane protested. "That's Liz's thing. I charm and every once in a while compel. I'm compelling here."

"Okay, if you just wanted to compel me into studying with Harry."

"Maybe I wanted you to study with me too?" Mary Jane suggested.

"Again," he said. "Phone number. Call."

"Okay, I wanted to see you apartment. No one's seen it, not even Harry," she said. "It was a big thing around school for a few weeks, you being on your own at your age. Our age."

"Emancipation isn't everything it's cracked up to be," Peter said, his eyes suddenly darker.

"I'm sorry," Mary Jane said quickly. "I didn't mean-"

"No, that's okay," Peter said, waving her apologies away.

"I could leave-" she started.

"No," Peter said. "You came all this way. It would be a shame not see my place." He rose and stretched, suppressing a yawn as Mary Jane followed suit. He pulled a key from his pocket, unlocked his door and swept it open grandly. "Welcome to Casa de Parker."

The apartment could charitably be described as cozy, or, uncharitably, as cramped. There were three rooms: a combined kitchenette/living room dominated by a couch and a coffee table rescued from Aunt May and Uncle Ben's house, a small bathroom and a bedroom with barely enough room for a bed. It wasn't much, but it was clean, the bed made, the floors vacuumed, the dishes washed and put away (by hand because he didn't have a dishwasher), the bathroom if not exactly sparkling then at least not stained and mildewed. A few books were scattered on the coffee table were the only real signs of disarray.

After the tour they retired to the living room to drink sodas and trade inane chatter.

"So how did you get emancipated? I mean, you're fourteen. That can't be normal." Mary Jane asked.

"I argued my case to the judge," Peter said. "I had a slideshow presentation, flow charts, unfavorable statistics on the foster system, testimonials by my teachers about how mature and responsible I was, all my report cards from elementary onward, a eight year plan going through high school and college… It was epically geeky."

"Wow," she said, suitably impressed. "And that worked?"

"Not even a little bit. Then I talked to Harry, and Harry talked to his Dad, and his Dad snapped his fingers and bam, I'm an emancipated minor. Of course now I owe Harry major. Tutoring sessions won't even begin to cover it, but maybe it can handle the interest."

"Favors earn interest?" Mary Jane asked.

"Big favors do. Small favors tend to go the other way."

"Good to know."

They drank silence for a few moments. Peter talked first. "So… why are you here?"

Mary Jane paused as she was about to drink. "I told you. Harry is failing calculus and he misses you and I wanted to see your apartment."

Peter looked at her, his eyes serious behind his glasses. "Harry failing calculus warrants maybe cornering me after class. As for the rest… Harry and I are friends, but Harry has lots of friends. He wouldn't miss me enough to mention it to you. My apartment's old news and even if it wasn't, you aren't half the gossip that Liz is. She would have barged in here with her pet caveman in tow when the story was fresh. But she didn't, so why would you? Don't get me wrong, it's great talking with you, but I am curious."

She fidgeted nervously with her coffee cup. He was surprised at himself. He'd had a crush on May Jane since forever. A year ago, he would have simply basked unquestioning in her presence. Now… He still liked her, but the puppy love was gone, gouged out by the movement of vaster and crueler emotions grinding like glaciers across his mindscape. Now he questioned.

"Something happened to me," Mary Jane started slowly. "I… I need to talk to someone about it."

"And you can't talk to Liz or Harry?" Peter asked.

"No," Mary Jane said definitely. "They'd think I was crazy."

"And I won't?"

"No," Mary Jane said with certainty. "You won't."

Peter smiled. "Okay, I won't."

Mary Jane smiled at him, a moony reflection of her usual sunny grin, but still beautiful. Then she seemed to turn inward, folding into herself as she stared down into her cup of coffee. Silence stretched long through the room. Peter waited. Eventually, she started talking.

"When I'm sad, I like to ride the trains…"

She stared at the window, at the dappled dark and bright world as it blurred by, at her own reflection and the brokenness that was normally carefully hidden behind spring-green eyes. She liked the trains. They made her feel connected and alone at the same time, part of the world, but separate from it. They made her feel like she was moving forward, progressing, even if she had nowhere to go.

That night they just weren't cutting it. She was restless, her feet tapping, her hands clenching. She wanted to move herself, not be moved. When the next stop came, she left the train and walked out into the night, ignoring the sensible Mary Jane that sat in the back of her head and told her she was being stupid.

She didn't know the part of town in which she had debarked. It looked run-down, used up, broken. Just walking down the street made her uneasy, anxious and a little bit afraid. It was almost refreshing to have something concrete and definite to be upset about instead of the vague disquiet she felt about her life in general. She smiled and quietly admitted there was something wrong with her, an admission she made daily and which daily came to nothing.

She walked in a dreamy reverie, wandering nowhere, just putting one foot in front of the other. And then someone grabbed her and her strange little dream-walk shattered. She looked at her assailants. He looked filthy in the dark, though that might have just been a trick of the shadows. He was dressed in jeans and a stained t-shirt, and he had friends that clustered around him like a pack of wild dogs around an alpha.

Mary Jane screamed, now, finally, listening to that sensible voice in the back of her head. It told her to run and she tried, but the leader had a solid grip on her arm and his friends now ringed around her as well. They dragged her into a nearby alley, laughing, saying oily, dirty things that she couldn't quite remember later but which made her feel sick just to think of them. She fought them but couldn't win and soon she was surrounded by high walls of graffiti-marked brick. She screamed again, this time receiving a ringing slap across the face for her trouble. She tasted blood in her mouth. All she could do was close her eyes and wait for the inevitable.

And then it all changed. One violent wrench and the arm holding her was gone. She opened her eyes and found the man who'd grabbed her completely vanished. His followers were shouting. They waved suddenly apparent guns around and discharged them into the night to no real effect. Mary Jane heard the artificial thunder but did not flinch away. It occurred to her she might be in shock, even as two other gang members flew violently up into the night and vanished. There were three left. Then two as another was snatched up into the night. One broke and ran. He made it to the mouth of the alley before he too was no more. And then there was one, glaring at the deep alley shadows, gun in hand. Suddenly he leveled the gun at something Mary Jane could not see and fired. In the sudden blast of light, Mary Jane could see… something. A deformed figure crouched amidst a nest of huge black serpents. And then the last man was holding his arm and screaming, his forearm bent unnaturally, his gun gone. A flicker of movement and he jerked backwards, falling bonelessly to the ground.

Mary Jane was alone with something, a creature that had taken out six men like it was nothing. Sensible Mary Jane was screaming to run far, far away, but she was back to being ignored. Mary Jane peered into the shadows and saw, staring back at her, a demonic figure with eyes like drops of blood, bright red, flat and perfectly circular. Ruby eyes met emerald and held for a few moments.

Carefully, slowly, a sinuous black appendage crept from the shadow and delicately trace Mary Jane's cheek.

Mary Jane felt the kiss of metal on her face. It was the last thing she felt before her eyes rolled up into her head and she fainted.

"I woke up hours later in my room," she finished.

Peter considered. "And you're sure it wasn't all a dream," he said more than asked.

"Positive," she replied.

"Then I guess you met the Creature and lived. Congratulations."

"The Creature?"

Peter nodded, sipped and said "That what they call it around here. It's not especially original or descriptive, I admit, but nothing else really seems to fit…"

"Tell me about him," Mary Jane said. She had set down her coffee mug and grabbed Peter's arm, almost making him spill his coffee. The intensity in her eyes was unsettling.

"Errr… Alright," Peter said and then paused, as if collecting his thoughts. "He appeared around two months ago, but there were reports earlier than that. People say there was a creature digging through the remains of the OzCorp research center that got wrecked by the man-spider, so he could be an experiment that escaped after the thing was destroyed."

"The man-spider thing? Wasn't that when-?" Mary Jane started and then clamped her mouth shut as Peter shot her a look.

"Anyway," Peter continued. "After that, the thing vanishes for months. Then there's this huge fight in the warehouse district. No one really saw what happened, but plenty of people heard it. When the police and camera crews get there, they find a warehouse that's all messed up. There are huge holes in the walls and ceiling, the floor's cratered in spots, there are packing crates broken everywhere, like someone had used them as baseballs. The whole thing was barely standing. And then, in the middle of the warehouse they find a woman cradling a man who looked like he'd been beaten half to death twice over. The woman is sobbing and begging for help, so naturally the police call in the EMTs to help the guy. It's only later they discover the guy is actually Otto Octavius-"

"The man-spider," Mary Jane said.

"Exactly. Something or someone went to town on him."

"But was it the creature?" Mary Jane asked, frowning.

"Well, the wife did describe something very similar to what you did, a twisted black figure with red eyes and four black tendrils coming out of his back. So smart money says it was the creature. After that the sighting became more random. Sometimes it's an attack, usually on drug dealers and gang member's, but that's probably just because they're the only ones who hang around alleyways and deserted warehouses after dark… Most of the time people just see him in passing as he wanders around the city."

Mary Jane looked at him as if he were crazy. "Shouldn't that be news or something? I mean, you have a strange creature stalking across the city attacking people. Shouldn't people be talking?"

"People are talking," said Peter with a shrug. "It's just not the kind of people that get into the paper much, unless they get caught doing something illegal. The actual attacks are kinda rare and all the sightings are at night, so it's mostly being passed of as cats or shadows or the wind."

"What about the man-spider? Do they think he beat himself up?"

"That was actually one theory," Peter said. "He was… is nutty as a fruitcake. He seemed more homicidal than suicidal when I saw him, but…" Peter shrugged. "The papers just said that the police had found and captured the man-spider. They didn't say anything about him being half-dead already."

"But you still believe he's real. The creature," Mary Jane stated more than asked.

Peter was silent for a moment, trying to organize his thoughts and simultaneously repress his more unpleasant memories. Finally he said, "I was there the day the man-spider attacked…I can't ever forget that day, no matter how hard I try. I saw one man rip through half a hundred security guards and policemen. I saw one man moving so fast he was a blur, throwing around grown men like they were plastic dolls, shattering solid concrete with punches and not even breaking a sweat while doing it. I saw one man prove that he was above the order of society, that he could defy the world and no one could touch him. I doubt anything natural could take him down like that, and I doubt he could do that to himself, on the physically impossible torn muscle and broken bones level. So yes, I think the creature is real. Your story pretty much seals the deal for me."

Mary Jane brooded in silence. Peter glanced at the clock. It was getting late but he certainly was not going to kick her out. She was, after all, Mary Jane, and however mentally messed up he had gotten, there was still a part of him doing back flips and waving pompoms at the fact that he had Mary Jane talking to him in his apartment, (without, of course, dwelling on how he had gotten his apartment).

Finally, she spoke. "I'm going to find him."

"What?" Peter asked, sure he had misheard.

"I'm going to find him," she repeated. "The creature. I'm going to track him down."

Peter choked on his coke and took a full minute to recover enough to speak. "See that, that's the worst idea I've heard in a while. Right up there with foster care and rat-legging." He paused, as if to consider the sheer enormity of that bad idea.

"Rat-legging?" Mary Jane asked.

"Like ferret-legging," Peter explained absent mindedly. "But, you know, with sewer rats. What would you even do if you found him? Ask him to homecoming? Get his autograph?"

Mary Jane snorted. "I was thinking more taking his picture. That'd prove his existence, right?"

"Assuming people don't think the photo is doctored, yeah, but why would you even want to do that?"

"Well," Mary Jane said, seemingly scrambling for an answer. "Well, there's probably a reward for proof, even if everybody thinks it's an urban legend. Or I could just sell it to a newspaper."

"You're going to risk your life for money? That… doesn't seem like you," Peter said and immediately regretted it as Mary Jane's eyes narrowed.

"I'm not the perfectly shallow party girl everyone thinks I am. I have flaws. I can be mopey or overdramatic or spiteful or greedy if I want to be. Don't think you know me, Peter Parker." She wasn't exactly shouting the last phrase, but her voice had definitely peaked a few octaves. She continued in a milder if slightly bitter tone "I get enough of that at school."

Peter very wisely decided to back off and change the subject. "So how are you going to find him? Believe it or not, others have tried."

It was Mary Jane's turn to shrug. "I'll just get a list of all the attacks and where they occurred. That should give me a general area to search. Then I guess I'll just have to look until I find him."

Peter stared at her, thought of a number of responses and discarded them all. Finally he managed "You do realize the Creature only shows himself at night, right?"

"Uh-huh," said Mary Jane.

"So you're going to be searching through what is probably going to be one of the worst parts of the city (because I really don't see this thing living in a penthouse apartment) at night, all alone, armed with only a camera?"

"And pepper spray," she added.

Peter wondered whether he should comment on just how suicidal that plan was before deciding it wouldn't do any good. "Would you promise me something since we're now apparently proto-friends?" he asked. She nodded warily. "When you go on these missions, could you take either me or Harry with you?"

"Why Harry and you? Why not Flash. I mean, he's bigger than both of you combined."

"Which will help not at all if someone shoots him, and, unless Flash has suddenly mastered diplomacy, someone will shoot him. Let's not even talk about Liz. She'd get both of you shot the first time she opened her mouth."

"But you and Harry are what? Bulletproof?

Peter snorted. "I wish. No, Harry, as the son of Norman Osborn and the heir apparent to OzCorp, has body guards that tail him after school. He calls them the goblin guard. No, I don't know why. You really haven't heard him complain about them?"

"Errr… Not really, no."

"Huh… Weird. I guess he wants you to think he's normal and not, y'know, rich enough to buy the school ten times over. Anyway, yeah they follow him around. They can step in when you get into trouble."

"When?" Mary Jane said indignantly. "How do you know I'll get into trouble? And what about you? Do you have bodyguards too?"

"Nope," Peter says, smiling and choosing not to answer the first question. "I'm a superhero."

"A superhero?" Mary Jane said, bemused.

"Yep," Peter said mock solemnly. "But don't tell anyone. It's a secret."

"My lips are sealed," Mary Jane said, miming zipping her lips. "So what's your power?"

"Common sense. It allows me to spot potentially dangerous situations and steer away from them," Peter explained solemnly.

"Amazing. And you're common sense is different from my common sense how exactly?"

"It exists?" Peter hazarded. Upon seeing her expression he held up his hands as if to ward her off. "Hey, the train/creature story is exactly doing you any favors here."

"A small lapse in judgment," May Jane argued.

"That's all it takes," Peter pointed out. "But seriously, me or Harry. Please. Just promise me that."

Mary Jane considered, chewing on her lower lip. Finally she sighed. "Fine. You or Harry." She looked at the microwave clock and did a quick double take. "Uh-oh. I've got to go. Thanks for showing me around and talking and not thinking I'm crazy." She shot up and headed for the door.

"Anytime," he replied. He was surprised to find he meant it. He'd been happier sitting their, talking to Mary Jane (who he now knew to be slightly insane) and drinking soda than he had been since the day Uncle Ben died. "Umm, do you need me to walk you to the train station, or…?'

"No," she said. "It's only a few blocks away. I'll be fine."

"If you say so," he said, doubtfully.

"I do. Bye!" And like that, she was gone.

Peter closed the door and leaned back against it, trying to process what had just happened, wondering why Mary Jane would seek him of all people out when she was on friendly terms with everyone in the school. Then he shrugged, deciding that it didn't matter.

He moved to the lone window in the house, situated over the television, and opened it. Then he called, not with his voice but with his mind, a quick, cool portion of his psyche that was still quite new to him. Something answered and he stood back.

It flowed sinuously through open window, a river of wetly gleaming black metal tendrils drawing behind them a black metal harness with a black bundle of fabric strapped to it. Peter stripped as it flowed toward him. He shucked of his green sweatshirt, his shoes, his jeans, revealing the quilted black body suit he wore underneath. Moving quickly, with an ease that was already very nearly second nature, he broke up the bundle of cloth attached to the harness, which twitched, impatient and restless before him. Out spilled pieces of black ceramic plates and swatches of durable Kevlar fabric. Peter strapped on the armor, the upper chest plate, the vambraces, the gloves, the greaves, the boots, the skull cap. The biomechanical arms tightened and fitted and adjusted as needed, manipulating the armor with four-clawed pincers agile enough to pick dimes of concrete and build mansions of cards. The whole process took less than a minute and Peter stood clad in a carapace of ceramic armor and heavy Kevlar, all experimental materials salvaged from the ruin OzCorp facility (along with a few other things) before the authorities had time to properly secure it themselves. There was only the mask, a close fitting, featureless black thing of thick Kevlar set with ruby-colored night-vision lenses. He hesitated a moment before pulling it over his head. It was surprisingly comfortable, quilted specially like the suit to allow some airflow. The world through the lenses was bright and red and well-defined.

But he was still just Peter Parker in scary black armor. He needed one more thing… The harness clicked open wide and, propelled by the tentacles, snapped closed again around his stomach, ringing it with slightly warm black metal. It was like becoming like regaining a lost limb, like reuniting with a long estranged friend, like becoming whole… Suddenly he felt strong, fast, powerful. Suddenly he became more aware of the room as his new appendages began feeding him information from their own sensors. He sometimes suspected he didn't even need the goggles, that even in pitch dark he could navigate just by the senses of his metal self.

The Creature rose with a thought, born aloft and out the room by the unnatural grace of the metal tendrils. He closed the window behind him, and climbed effortlessly, soundlessly up to the roof. It was exhilarating, the cool night air and the strength of his metal self. He wanted revel in that exhilaration, to bound across the city on his metal legs, to scale the tallest skyscrapers and laugh into the wind as he swung from their lightning rods.

But he controlled himself. Mary Jane was walking down the street. He would shadow her home; make sure she got there alive. After that? Maybe he would find a drug dealer to mug. Living on his own was expensive, and the funds he had inherited were worryingly short. Maybe he would put in a few appearances near the more highbrow portions of the city, just to throw off Mary Jane's map. Maybe he would just race across the city at top speed, just for the hell of it. He was the Creature as long as he wore the harness, and the night city was his playground.

AN: Questions? Comments? Concerns? Critiques? Review and let me know! And no, I have no idea where this is going. Or if it is going anywhere. But I'm interested in finding out.

AN2: Should I have mentioned this is (very loosely) based off the Spider-man loves Mary Jane universe? Probably. Ah, well.


	2. Arson, Assault and Kidnapping Oh My

Disclaimer: I don't own Spidey, his amazing friends or any other associated characters. MARVEL does. I'm not making any money here. I have no real idea where this fic is going, I'm too lazy to do anything beyond a cursory editing for it, and, as stated before, I have the grammar skills of a stoned monkey. You have been warned.

Arson, Assault and Kidnapping Oh My

Peter scrambled through a thick haze of acrid smoke, over jagged bits of rubble, skirting open flames and screaming at the top of his lungs all the while. "Uncle Ben! Where are you! Uncle Ben!" He shouted those words over and over again, punctuated by the occasional fit of coughing as smoke raked down his throat.

Someone was laughing in the distance. Guns fired and fire crackled and people screamed, but through it all Peter could hear a pained murmur saying "Peter… Peter…" It was like some nightmarish game of Marco Polo as Peter kept screaming "Uncle Ben" and listening for the muted reply of "Peter".

It took an eternity to find the source of that voice in that smoky hell, an eternity of dark orange flames peeking through white smoke and faceless forms thrashing and screaming and bleeding in the dim haze. Then Peter found him, splayed out on the rubble, one hand clutching his chest while the other clawed at the ground, all while he murmured "Peter… Peter…" His eyes were wide and fever-bright with pain and fear.

Coughing too hard to speak, his head spinning from the smoke, Peter stumbled forward and fell to his knees before his uncle, grabbing him by his shoulders. Uncle Ben looked at him, beyond him, "Peter," he whispered and made as if to say something else. Peter leaned in to listen.

But then Uncle Ben changed. His clean-cut features blunted and rounded, ugly black bruises blossomed across his flesh and a mask of blood settled over his features. One eye swelled shut and wept red tears; the other stared up at him at him with naked, primal fear. "Please don't," Otto Octavius begged. "Please…" And his mouth opened wide as the mouth of a well and out of that abyss rushed clawed tendrils of black steel, still slick and shiny with blood. They wrapped around Peter, binding him tight and-

He woke to someone gently shaking his shoulder. He looked over, blearily, still half-asleep, and saw a crimson crystal eye peering concernedly from amidst the sharp claws perched at the end of the sinuous black tendril.

Quite understandably he screamed.

His screams quieted after a few seconds and he looked at the clock. It was five A.M. At least, he thought, I won't be late for school. He snickered, still too breathless to laugh, as he trembled the adrenaline out of his system.

His neighbors were well accustomed to screams at odd hours, so he had a good uninterrupted hour extra to get ready. He brushed his teeth, showered (his metal self quite helpfully scrubbing his back, which had creeped him the hell out the first few times it happened, but which by now he took for granted), dressed, actually ate a sit down breakfast (granted, it was cold pizza and coke) instead of snagging a pop-tart on the way out, packed his stuff (including a quite astounding amount of sugary things to keep him running through the day) and left still fifteen minutes earlier than usual.

As he walked away from his building he could feel the black harness, his metal self, watching him from his apartment. He felt uneasy leaving it behind, as if he were leaving his legs behind and dragging himself hand over hand to school. But the Creature could not be seen in the light of day, at least not so near his apartment complex. It could follow on its own if he let it, but that would be too conspicuous even if it stuck to the rooftops.

As he did every day, Peter resigned himself to being crippled for the next few hours and trudged on.

School was boring for Peter more so than most. It was not that he was uninterested in the material. He loved to learn. It was just that he was very, very good at learning. He had, in fact, already learned everything they would be taught for the rest of the year. Tests were a breeze, homework simple drudgery and essays only trying in that they took so long to type out.

It was rather worrying in a distant kind of way. He had always been smart – a genius if you compared him to monkeys like Flash – but everything seemed to come to him so much more easily after the accident. Concepts that barely eluded him before were now as plain as day, he read twice as fast as he used to, and his memory was very near photographic. It made him wonder how else had his brain changed? Would it stop or would the nanites swarming in his skull just keep on renovating until nothing human was left?

He tried not to think about it, but the long hours spent half-listening to the teacher droning on about something he had learned months ago made it a hard notion to avoid. Happily, he had learned along the way how to doze with his eyes open, so the time spent on introspection was thankfully minimized.

By lunch time, however, he was contemplating accidentally setting the chemistry lab on fire again, just for some excitement. He decided to find Harry instead. He had gym around that time, so Peter moseyed down to the field, absentmindedly munching on a candy bar.

Someone must have cheesed off the coach, not that that took much. The entire class was running laps, save for the ones who had already collapsed. Harry was still in the running so Peter waited near the chain-link fence and called out as he passed. Harry trundled off the track and over to the fence, grinning. Sweat was running down his face, his hair was in disarray and he stank, but he still radiated a sort of slick, golden boy charm. His smile was painfully white and he had a tan despite it still being winter.

"Hey, Pete, you're talking to me again. Awesome," he said with more exuberance than Peter put forth in an entire week.

Peter winced and scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Yeah, about that. Sorry. I was in a bad place. I didn't really want to talk to anyone. I still shouldn't have pushed you away. You were… are my friend and you did me a major favor getting your dad to throw some weight behind my emancipation request. So… I'm sorry."

Harry stared at him. "Is this where we cry and hug each other, then go to my house for a slumber party so we can eat double fudge ice cream, watch Oprah and talk about the guys we like-like? 'Cause I really haven't been popping any estrogen pills lately, so it might be a little bit awkward."

Peter stared right back at him, his head cocked slightly to the side.

"I'm calling you a girl," Harry elaborated.

"I'm aware," Peter said. "I just forgot how… _you_ you are. It's a shock to my system."

"Osborn charm." Harry shrugged. "You'll get used to it again. Mom says it grows on you. Then she adds 'like a fungus'. Or occasionally she'll say 'like a yeast infection' or 'like leprosy'. It really depends on how drunk she is at the time."

"How's your mother?" Peter asked suddenly, remembering with a twinge of guilt that others had been harmed in the attack at the OzCorp research facility. Harry's mother had worked there as a geneticist. She had been dragged out of the building by some colleagues before it collapsed, but not before falling rubble cracked her skull and put her into a coma.

Harry's mood fell immediately. "She's still… She hasn't woken up yet. The doctors say." He paused, struggling to get the next few words out.

Peter rushed to stop him. "I'm sorry, Harry. I shouldn't have asked. Do you want another estrogen apology? I could probably spring for some double fudge ice-cream."

Harry struggled for a moment, but managed to throw off the beginnings of a funk through sheer force of will. "Nah, Pete m'boy, all is forgiven! Everything ever! Today is a glorious day and nothing will spoil it for me," Harry said, throwing his arms wide, addressing and embracing the world.

"What's the occasion?" Peter asked.

"Mary Jane asked me out on a date! Mary! Jane! Asked! Me!" he exclaimed, grinning like a lunatic and punching the air to emphasize each word. "Pete, the most popular girl in school asked me on a date this Friday right out of the blue. This day can't get any better."

"She asked you out?" Peter said, bemused.

"Well, she made up some ridiculous excuse about going out looking for some creature thing, but she was just being shy." Harry looked at Peter seriously. "And why wouldn't she be shy? Pete, I am a beast, a sexy, sexy beast. Occasionally I look into the mirror and I'm intimidated by the sheer sexiness I radiate. It's a curse really."

"I'm sure," Peter said, trying to choke down a laugh.

Harry evidently took his expression to be sadness. "Oh, Pete, I'm sorry. I know you had a crush on her, but this was just meant to be."

Peter shrugged and affected a kind of sad nonchalance. "Me, you, most of the boys in our class and, if rumor holds, quite a few of the girls. There'll be a lot of broken hearts in this school next week. Invite me to the wedding?"

"You can be a steward," Harry said generously. "But Flash is my best man."

"Of course," Peter nodded. "Well, bye." He turned, still wrestling with laughter.

"Wait," Harry called. "Why did you want to talk to me?"

"Hmm?" Peter paused a moment. "Oh. I was wondering if you wanted to restart our algebra tutoring sessions."

Harry's expression soured slightly, going a few shades south of demented glee. "Yeah, I'd better. The old man is riding me about my algebra grade. Wednesday after school in the library good with you?"

"Sure," Peter said. "Later." He hurried off, making sure he was out of sight before he finally burst out laughing.

He sleepwalked through the rest of the day and the day afterward though he did remember to be friendlier to Harry and Mary Jane, which unfortunately also put him in contact with Liz and, by extension, Flash, which lead to the kind of petty bullying that had been endemic to his middle school experience, which perversely made him feel more like Peter Parker than he had in months. On Wednesday he tutored Harry as best he could, though the other boy was more focused on his upcoming date with Mary Jane than on propping up his flagging algebra grade. Peter found himself looking forward to it as well, though for entirely different reasons.

On Thursday, Mary Jane came to talk to him during his lunch period.

"Shouldn't you be in class?" Peter asked as she walked up.

She blushed and Peter felt his heart melt a little. It was a vaguely uncomfortable sensation. "Err… Maybe? But it's gym. We're probably just running laps again (what is with that by the way? Did someone run over the coach's dog or what?) and I need your help. I've made a map of all the creature sightings and I think I found its territory, but I need you to double check." She opened up her book bag and took out a black binder. 'The Creature' was written in white-out on the front.

"You're really going through with this?" Peter asked.

"Of course," Mary Jane said. "Why not?"

"No reason," Peter said, taking up the binder and opening it up. Inside were reports on the creature sightings, mostly articles cut out of cheap gossip magazines and laminated, and a map marked with black dots and a red circle that Peter was uncomfortably aware encompassed his own apartment. Mary Jane had been busy. "Errr… wow."

"Does it look right to you?" Mary Jane asked.

"Based on my extensive experience hunting urban legends? It looks just about right." Peter passed the book back to Mary Jane.

"So, you're taking someone with you?" Peter prodded. "When you go looking for the thing, I mean."

"Yep," Mary Jane nodded. "I've already asked Harry. I would have asked you, but you've already done so much."

"Maybe next time," Peter said. "You two have fun."

"This is serious business," Mary Jane said, half-seriously. "No fun involved."

"Alright," Peter said. "Then you two have a productive and completely non-fun evening."

"Thanks." Mary Jane flashed him a smile and he found himself smiling back again without thinking. "Well, I'd better get back to class. I'll let you know how it went on Monday."

Peter, who planned to know how the search went well before Monday, simply smiled and went back to eating.

School Friday was endless, more so than most days, and Peter again had to resist the urge to set the chemistry lab on fire. He was rather proud of that, and thought that he should get an award for the number of times he did not try to burn down the school. But no, everyone focused on the two or three times he did… There was no justice in the world.

Sundown found him searching the area Mary Jane had marked off, slinking across the roof tops as the creature, easily bridging the yawning divides between buildings propelled by his metal self. He was fast, strong and cunning in ways that those bound to hard pavement and the light of day could never imagine. He was not, however, omniscient and thus had trouble finding Mary Jane and Harry among the ragged swarms of pedestrians. He was only slightly worried. Harry really did have bodyguards the last time he had checked.

Still it was ever so slightly frustrating. He had spent all week thinking of ways to mess with them while they were on their hunt. Now it had all come to nothing. He shrugged as much as the Creature suit would allow and sped off to find some stress relief.

He found them in an alley between two closed businesses. He wondered briefly why they hung out in alleyways instead of actual buildings. Was it just the cachet of being where they were not supposed to be or was it more practical, like their parents did not want them holding gang meetings in the house? They were a fresh bunch, he judged. They did not glance upward nervously, fingering their weapons. They did not whisper furtively to each other as if afraid of being overheard. Most of all they were not sporting a fetching assortment of casts, splints, braces and bandages. Peter smiled under his faceless mask. This would be fun.

He was about to descend upon them like the wrath of God (Old Testament, of course, before He decided to give the whole 'mercy and forgiveness' thing a try), when he suddenly noticed a vaguely familiar face, a tiny girl of Asian descent, around eight or nine years old. Peter remembered seeing her playing outside his apartment building, so probably a neighbor of some sort.

Peter held back, trying to work out what she was doing there. She was not being hurt. No one was paying attention to her at all. She just sat there, rooted to the cracked concrete, eyes filled with tears held off by stubborn will. Her hands were bunched up in her lap, reflexively curling and uncurling.

Peter found himself in a quandary. He could burst down there, take them all out and thereby traumatize the girl for life. Or he could wait and watch and hope she escaped, meanwhile she would only probably be traumatized for life. Decisions, decisions.

Peter felt himself fall as his metal self apparently made its own decisions. He landed lightly in the midst of the thugs.

_Ah well, childhood trauma builds character. Just look at me, I have character running out my ears,_ he mused as one metal arm lashed out and caught one man across the ribs, while another blasted a bald-headed man across the face, a third struck like a snake, a straight line blow that lifted a man off his feet and threw him six feet back, and the fourth kept Peter aloft, twisting this way and that to minimize the chances of getting shot. The blows were all gentle taps when measured against the full force of his arms, but he still felt bones snap under his touch, the sensation transmitted by sensitive synthetic nerves threaded throughout his metal self. Two more fell before the surprise wore off and they began to react. One drew a cheap pistol, which was slapped out of his hand before he had a chance to use it. He hardly had a chance to register this, let-alone the fact that his arm was now broken when the metal arm swept back and cracked him over the head. Another, in a startling display of sheer, bloody-minded stupidity, drew a knife and dove at the Creature. Peter almost felt sorry for him as one tentacle lifted him up and threw him the length of the alley. Luckily for him, his landing was cushioned by the bodies of some of his fleeing compatriots, saving him from a head-long dive onto hard concrete.

And then there was nothing but the agonized forms of fallen gang-members and the girl, who was now staring wide-eyed, tears flowing freely and a wet-spot growing on her jeans.

_Oh hell_, Peter thought. Nothing in his experience as a single child had adequately prepared him for dealing with a shell-shocked little girl. He considered what to do even as his tendrils crawled out and relieved the wounded men of their wallets out of pure reflex. He would shuck them for the money later and toss the remains in a convenient garbage bin well away from his apartment.

The girl had not moved. It was times like this that Peter wished he could actually speak through the mask, just so he could utter some reassuring words. Sadly, he had a choice between speaking and making sure his face stayed pretty and not horribly scarred by some idiot getting in a lucky stab with the business end of a broken beer bottle. He had understandably gone with the latter and held to his decision, even given the occasional inconvenience.

"Get away from her!" a voice screamed. Harry charged down the alley, bellowing a war cry that would have sounded much more impressive had his voice not cracked in the middle and brandishing a nail-studded bat obviously dropped by one of the fleeing thugs.

Smiling in relief beneath his expressionless mask, Peter vaulted backwards, scrambled to the roof and was soon dashing across roof tops again, back in his familiar element. Harry and Mary Jane would help the girl. Well, Mary Jane would. He stopped to count his new funds, pocketed a hundred or so in fives, tens and twenties, and tossed the wallets in a handy trash bin. He decided to head home instead of pushing his rather dubious luck further.

He had made it there and was cleaning some left over dishes, having stashed the cash in the back of his bedroom closet, when someone knocked on his door. He dried his hands and took the two steps necessary to reach the door and open it.

Harry barged in, with Mary Jane close behind carrying the girl from the factory, who had apparently fallen asleep, and sweating with the effort. "Um, Peter?" she said, a little short of breath. "Can I put her down somewhere?"

Peter motioned her to the couch, a confused expression on his face he did not have to fake. Mary Jane hesitated. "She's kinda wet. It'd probably be better if we changed her clothes first."

Peter snorted. "Sure, just let me dip into my secret stash of clothes for eight year-old girls."

Mary Jane rolled her eyes in response. "Just a t-shirt would do. I'll be in the bathroom getting her cleaned up." She disappeared into the bedroom, heading toward the bathroom.

Peter turned to Harry, who was rooting through Peter's impressive array of junk foods. "Wow, Harry, you move fast. One date and you two already have a kid. And out of wedlock. Her parents will be so disappointed, unless… did you elope?"

"It wasn't a date," Harry said, still rummaging. "Thanks for the heads up on that, by the way."

"What kind of friend would I be if I ruined the best day ever?" Peter asked.

"Do you see these clothes?" Harry asked, gesturing down at himself. "All designer, all custom fitted, all ruined."

Peter looked at his mostly clean clothes. "They don't look ruined."

"They stink of the lower classes," he said, finally deciding on a bag of Cheetos and a coke from the fridge. "I'll have to instruct the butler to burn them all."

"You know why I like you, Harry?"

"My vast wealth and willingness to throw my father's weight around to get my way?" Harry hazarded.

"You're a man of the people. You haven't forgotten where you came from."

"A line of wealthy and privileged aristocrats stretching back to before the Mayflower set sail," he said, nodding as he munched on a Cheeto.

"Whatever." Peter waved dismissively. "So, when did you figure out it wasn't a date?"

"I started suspecting it when she dragged me to the worst parts of the city. If I never see another grimy, cockroach infested tenement again it will be too soon. How can people live like that? Half these places smelled like urine and used condoms, and the other half _wished_ they smelled that good. Nice apartment by the way."

"Thanks," Peter said, resisting the temptation to sniff the air.

"Anyway, I was sure it wasn't a date when she began interviewing hookers about the monster thing. You should hear the stories they told. Apparently this freak is a total pervert, likes to drag girls into alleys and… Well, I'm too much of a gentleman to say it, but trust me."

"Come on, you can't leave me hanging here," Peter cajoled.

"Well…"

"You know you want to," Peter said.

"Alright, but don't blame me," Harry said, and then he told him. It took ten minutes of graphic description, complete with hand gestures and, at one point, a crude diagram sketched out on a napkin.

"Jesus," Peter said at the end with unfeigned horror at what people were saying about him. Sure, he had heard the rumors that the Creature was kidnapping hobos and eating them, but that was nothing compared to what he had just heard. Did people really think he did that sort of stuff? Some of it was not even physically possible.

"I know, right?" Harry said, nodding.

"Jesus," Peter said again, still in a daze. "Who thinks of stuff like that?"

"This creature's one sick puppy. I'm just glad we could get that little girl away from it before it decided to do something nasty to her."

Peter forced himself to repress the horror for another time, something he had gotten quite good at. "Yeah, I meant to ask. What's with the girl?"

"Yeah, sorry about this," Mary Jane said as she walked in, closing the bedroom door behind her. "I got her cleaned up and put her in your bed. I hope that's okay."

Peter waved that away. "That's fine, but the question still stands."

"We couldn't just leave her in that warehouse, could we?" Harry asked rhetorically.

"Warehouse?" Peter asked, projecting confusion and being quietly pleased with his acting skills.

"Let me tell it," Mary Jane said. "So, there we were, searching for the creature. Or at least I was. Harry was mostly complaining about being hungry and tired, when I specifically told him to eat before he came. Did he listen? No…. Anyway, there we were, searching for the creature, when we heard shouting and saw people running out of an alley screaming there heads off."

"So naturally you ran straight toward them," Peter said, shaking his head.

Mary Jane reddened and looked down. "Well, we were trying to find the creature, and that seemed like a good lead."

"What did we say about common sense?" Peter said.

"That it was your superpower, not mine," Mary Jane said dismissively.

"Oh, yeah..."

"Is it mine too? I didn't want to go into the alley," Harry said, crumpling the bag Cheetos and tossing it over his shoulder onto the counter.

"No, your superpower is being filthy rich and having bodyguards," Peter said.

"Bodyguards? I haven't had those for months. I finally convinced my dad I was mature enough to take care of myself," he said. "I'm flying solo."

"So Mary Jane was alone with you in the ghetto without bodyguards? Oh God, she could have been killed," Peter said, kicking himself for not making sure that Harry still had his guards.

"Hey, I would have protected her," Harry protested.

"Could we not talk about her as if she weren't here?" Mary Jane asked, startling them both slightly. "'Cause that'd be great. And for the record, I can take care of myself. Harry would get himself killed long before I did."

"Hey!" Harry said.

"You know it's true," Mary Jane replied, crossing her arms. "And keep it down or you'll wake up the girl."

"Speaking of the girl," Peter prompted.

"Oh yeah," Mary Jane said. "So we run into the alley to see what happened, when we see him."

"Him? The Creature?" Peter asked.

"Yeah. He looked just like I remembered, all black scaled and red-eyed, except a thousand times worse since I kept remembering the things those ladies told us about him" – Peter felt himself twitch and carefully tried to school his features – "He was looming over that little girl who was crying her eyes out, too terrified to even move, too even speak. She just sat there trembling, as if she had just given up."

"And his tentacle things were feeling up the unconscious guys. They probably owe us a solid for chasing him off too."

"You chased him off?" Peter asked, trying to sound impressed. In truth, he really was. Charging the Creature to protect a little girl (and, not incidentally, impress Mary Jane) was a brave thing to do. Stupid and suicidal yes, but brave as well.

"You should have been there, Pete. I was epic! I scooped up a bat one of the guys had dropped and charged at him yelling a very manly battle cry. He took one look at me and he booked. Best argument I can see that the Creature's smart. It knows who not to mess with." He buffed his fingers on his shirtfront and blew on them, incidentally getting Cheeto residue on his designer clothes.

"He was probably just startled," Mary Jane said dismissively. "It's like how you can drive off a bear by throwing rocks and doing jumping jacks, even though it could rip of your head with one swipe. The Creature has animal intelligence at best."

"Either way, impressive."

"What can I say, Pete?" Harry said, leaning back. "I told you: I'm a beast."

"A sexy beast," Peter completed absentmindedly.

There was silence. He looked up to see Harry and Mary Jane staring at him.

"What?"

Harry cleared his throat. "Um, Pete, I'm flattered, really. But I don't bend that way. I, um, I hope we can still be friends."

Peter caught on. "No, I was just saying what you said at the field. Remember that? The field? It was like Monday?"

"Sure, Pete," Harry smiled reassuringly. "Sure."

"No-"

"Don't worry Peter," Mary Jane put in, smiling. "We're your friends. We'll support you no matter what."

Peter rolled his eyes and sighed in aggravation. "I hate you both."

"Oh, don't be like that," Mary Jane chastened.

"Just get on with the story."

"There's not all that much left to tell," said Harry with a shrug. "After my epic charge-"

"We tried talking to the girl," Mary Jane interrupted. "But she was pretty upset. We managed to make out her name is something like 'Judy Layton Lee' and that she lives here."

"Like across the hall from you, Pete," Harry said, finishing his drink and tossing that too over his shoulder. "You don't recognize her?"

"I don't really talk to my neighbors," he said, shrugging. "They don't really talk to me. It works out remarkably well for everyone."

"Not very neighborly," Harry said, shaking his head in disapproval.

"Oh well."

"So," Mary Jane overrode their conversation. "We tried taking her to her apartment, but no one would open the door so-"

"You came over here," Peter said, rubbing his eyes.

"Is that a problem?" Mary Jane asked worriedly. "I mean, we can leave, it's just that-"

"It's fine," Peter assured her. "I was just going to study all night anyway.

"Man, that's sad," Harry said sympathetically. Or as sympathetic as Harry ever got.

"So what now? I mean, I'm not adopting the kid. Does her owner know where she is?"

"We left a note."

Peter was about to ask what the note said when the door burst inward and a man stormed in. He was of medium height but made of solid muscle and righteous paternal wrath, and the grace with which he moved made Peter very nervous indeed. "Who is it?" he demanded. "Who took my daughter?"

Mary Jane sputtered as she began trying to explain. Peter and Harry immediately pointed at each other. The man looked between the two, then went for Harry, grabbing him by the throat and slamming him into the wall. "Where is she? Where did you take her?"

Peter was for once quietly glad he looked like such geek. He had no date on a Friday night, true, but at least he avoided getting strangled by angry fathers. He wondered if he should intervene, but there was little he could do apart from calling his metal self out from under his bed, and he was not quite prepared to do that. Besides, Harry looked to be holding his own in a 'being strangled to death' kind of way. The man would definitely know by the scratches on his arm in the morning that he had been strangling someone with extremely sharp fingernails.

The bedroom door slammed open, and a t-shirt clad blur shot out and latched onto the angry man's leg with a cry of "Daddy!"

He paused and looked down, his hands still around Harry's throat. "Jubilation?" he said uncertainly. He shoved Harry away, sending him crashing into the counter. He picked her up, looked at her, looked at Harry still gasping on the floor, Mary Jane surreptitiously rummaging through the kitchen drawers searching for a knife and Peter observing everything with mild interest. Then he bolted out the door with his daughter in his arms. After a moment, they heard a door slam down the hall.

A full minute passed before anyone spoke. Finally Peter said, "Well, that was interesting."

"What just happened?" Mary Jane asked.

"Someone just tried to kill me. Thanks for leaping to my defense, by the way," Harry rasped.

"I was looking for a knife," Mary Jane said, apologetically.

"I knew you could handle it," said Peter. "You're a beast, remember? More importantly, where does he live again?"

"Across the hall and down a few doors," said Mary Jane.

"Great. If he breaks in and kills me during the night, I'm haunting you both," Peter grumbled.

"He won't have to. Break in I mean," said Mary Jane. "Your lock's already broken. He could just open the door."

"Thanks MJ," Peter said. "That makes me feel a whole lot better."

"Sorry." Mary Jane blushed.

"Well, as fun as this was, I have to be getting home," Harry said.

"You just want to be gone before he comes back," Peter accused.

"Yep," Harry admitted cheerfully.

"You think he'll come back?" Mary Jane asked.

"We did kidnap his daughter," Harry pointed out.

"Who's this 'we', rich boy?" Peter asked.

"You let us stay here. That's at least an assist."

"We didn't kidnap her!" Mary Jane insisted. "We rescued her."

"He doesn't know that. He just found his kid, and parents get a bit worked up about things like that, if I remember correctly," Peter said.

"But she'll tell him what happened," Mary Jane said. "She'll tell him that we rescued her."

"So my continued existence hinges on the memory and rationality of a traumatized eight year-old? Great."

Mary Jane spent a moment considering this, then stepped forward and kissed Peter briefly on the cheek. "I'm sorry, Peter. I hope I see you on Monday." She quickly hurried out.

"Wow," Peter said. "That almost made it all worth it."

Harry snorted. "Well don't get used to it. We have a date next Friday."

"Another Creature hunt?" Peter asked.

"No, this one's a real date. Dinner, a movie, a walk in the park. The works."

"How did you score that?" Peter said, impressed despite himself.

"She was so impressed by my manly attack on the creature in defense of that little girl that she practically begged me for a date."

"And then you made her walk a few blocks and up six flights of stairs carrying a sleeping eight year-old because you didn't want to get pee on your clothes," Peter pointed out, then shook his head at Harry's expression. "I know you far too well. Anyway, that pretty much killed any credit you got for driving the Creature off. Try again."

"There's always my natural good looks, stupendous wealth and the good old Osborn charm."

"I think the third mostly cancels out the first two. So, third times the charm."

Harry hesitated. "I may have… Um, well… You see… It sounds a lot worse than it really is. I may have been a bit disappointed when I found it wasn't really a date. I may have expressed this disappointment rather… loudly, and-"

"She gave you a date so you'd shut up?"

"It wasn't my proudest moment," he admitted. "But once we're actually on the date, I'm sure I can win her over. I'm not out of the game yet, Pete."

"Good luck with that," said Peter. "Now could you go after Mary Jane and walk her home? The Creature is still around, and we all know what he's like…"

"Oh! Maybe I can run him off again. That would totally earn me boyfriend points."

"That's the spirit," Peter cheered. "Now get out."

And Peter was alone with his broken door and a crumpled, empty Cheetos bag and discarded coke can on his formerly clean counter. He sighed, picked up after Harry, shut his broken door –for all the good it would do – and decided to call it a night. If someone decided to come in and steal his stuff… Well, it was not like his stuff was all that valuable. And if they came into his bedroom, his metal self would be there waiting.

With a shrug, Peter turned off his lights and went to bed.

AN: So it turns out (to my surprise) that this fic is based on Spider-man Loves Mary Jane in the same way that Gotham City and Metropolis are both based on New York, i.e. one can find a great many points of similarity between the two, but just as many if not more points of difference. So, um, sorry?

AN2: Please read, review, and tell me about the legion of mistakes I've made. As soon as I figure out how to edit already posted stories, I'll start correcting chapters (including fixing the algebra/calculus thing).

I should probably explain at some point what happened at the lab and why Peter wasn't bitten by the spider, huh?


	3. The Morning After

Disclaimer. Don't own anything. Sorry for the late but... Well, no real excuse. I'm just gawdawful lazy. All warning apply: badly written, poorly edited, and the torture I put grammar through should be forbidden by the Geneva convention.

Peter woke with the utter certainty that there was someone in his apartment who was not supposed to be there. Whoever it was did not even have the decency to be quiet about it. The television was on. He could hear bangs and thumps, as if someone were moving furniture with a sledgehammer. He looked at his digital alarm clock, groaned, and burrowed deeper into the covers, slapping a pillow over his head to dim the noise. Intruder or not, there was no way he was getting up before seven on a weekend.

A few hours later, he woke and grudgingly decided he had to deal with the world outside of his bed again, including whoever had been in his apartment and whatever damage they had done before they left.

He rose, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, scratched himself in impolite places, muttered a few choice obscenities and opened his bedroom door.

On the bright side, his apartment had not been trashed. On the contrary, his broken door had been replaced with what looked like a considerably sturdier model.

On the more disconcerting side, the man who had tried killing Harry was sitting in his living room watching television and his daughter lying on the floor in front of him drawing with crayons. They both turned to stare at Peter.

"Um… Hi?" Peter said. "If you're still all homicidal, I can give you Harry's address."

The man offered a nervous smile. He looked older now that he was not trying to kill someone. He had wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, and grey shades in his black hair. He still looked like he could snap Peter like a tooth-pick if he was so inclined. "That will not be necessary," he said, and Peter could hear the care he used in choosing each word. English as a second language then, he decided. "I came here to apologize for my behavior."

"Oh, it's fine," Peter shrugged. "Everyone wants to strangle Harry occasionally. It's part of the Osborn charm."

"Be that as it may," the man said carefully. "My actions were uncalled for. I only knew that my daughter was missing and I was… overwrought."

"Water under the bridge," Peter said.

"I replaced your door. It's a much better model. Harder to kick in," he smiled at his joke. "My name is Bruce, Bruce Lee."

Peter paused, staring at the man, his sleep numbed mind trying to come up with a sufficiently smart-ass reply to that. In the end, all he said was "Really?"

"No," said the man who was not Bruce Lee. "Not really. But the look on your face… Sorry. My name is Shin Lee. This is my daughter, Jubilation." He gestured to the girl, who did not bother to look up from her drawing.

"Jubilation? Is that another joke or…?" Peter trailed off.

"No, no. Her mother wanted to give her an American name, and-" He shrugged helplessly.

"Jubilation," Peter finished. "Alrighty. It's not that bad… Um, why are you here again?"

"Too fix your door, apologize and dissuade you from calling the police."  
"Done, done and done," Peter said.

Shin hesitated. "That's it? I broke into your home."

"You fixed it up again." Peter shrugged.

"I attacked your friend," Shin pointed out.

"If I had a dime for every time I've wanted to strangle Harry over the years, I'd be

richer than his father," Peter said with a another shrug. "If you actually talk to him, you'll probably end up wanting to strangle him again."

"Ah… Well, I would like to account for my actions anyway. They are a burden to my conscience and a stain upon my honor," Shin said.

"That's really not necessary," Peter said hastily, not really wanting to know.

"I insist," Shin said firmly. "It is a matter of honor."

"Fine." Peter sighed. "You mind if I make something to eat?"

"Of course, only…" Shin trailed off.

"Only?"

"Only could you put on some pants? My daughter is at a very impressionable age and-"

"Right. Got it." Peter shut the door quickly and scrambled for something to wear.

Once pants were requisitioned, Peter began putting together breakfast, which involved old Chinese food, Doritos and coke. Shin actually looked green as Peter started eating, which Peter thought was uncalled for. Sure the Chinese food was a few days old and may or may not have developed some rude form of fungal intelligence, but that was no reason to turn that shade of vomit green…

Shin began to speak after coughing a little into his fist and averting his eyes away from Peter's food. "When I was younger and living in Tokyo, I was… angry… always angry. I got into many fights, and eventually became very, very good at fighting with my fists, with knives, with clubs, with guns… There are organizations out there who take an interest in angry young men skilled at fighting. I was hired by one and I rose through the ranks quickly." He paused for a moment, searching for the words to continue his stumbling narrative.

Peter took the chance to butt in. "Wait, should you be telling me this with your daughter in the room?"

Shin glanced at the girl and snorted. "She does not listen. Every time I tell this story, try to impart wisdom to her and a sense of where she comes from, she ignores me. Her ears are stone where this is concerned." He shook his head. "Now, where was I? Ah, yes. I was destined for a high station in that organization, when the most terrible thing happened to me. I fell in love."

"And that's bad because?" Peter asked.

"Love is the bane of great men," Shin replied seriously. "It distracts them from what is important. Where they should strive, they flounder in contentment. Where they should sacrifice, they hold tight to what they have. Where they should be reckless they are wary and where they should be wary, reckless. No, one can have love or greatness, but never both."

"That's depressing," Peter remarked watching Jubilee for some reaction to this statement. Nothing.

"It is the truth, a harsh one, yes, but tempered in that with love, one loses the desire for such greatness." Shin shrugged.

"So who was she?" Peter asked.

"It doesn't matter," Shin said. "Not to you anyway. What matters is the effect. I lost my taste for fighting, for killing, for almost dying. I lost my edge. And an enforcer with a blunted edge is a dead enforcer. I had to get out of the business."

"And that didn't go over well," Peter said from around a mouthful of suspect Chinese food.

"No. They tried to kill me, kill us both. They failed. I was still just good enough to get us both out alive. We made it to America, got new names, new lives. She became pregnant with Jubilee and died in childbirth." He paused a moment. "That always struck me as funny. During our escape, she walked through hails of bullets with me, weathered explosions, even killed a man who would have killed me. But when we made it to safety, she died giving birth in a hospital in one of the most advanced nations in the world. It just seems so… Wrong. I have to laugh."

Peter swallowed painfully, gagging slightly on the Chinese food. "That's… That's kinda sick man."

Shin shrugged. "I was a professional killer for seven years. A strange sense of humor is a necessity in that job."

"Well…" Peter trailed off, not sure what to say next, wondering what the etiquette was when someone breaks into your apartment to give you're their life story.

"My story is not yet done," said Shin. "Be patient. I settled here, in this city. I became a handyman, built a business. I take care of this building and several others." He caught sight of Peter face. "Ah, you are thinking that, given the disrepair of this building, I am rather less gifted as a handyman than as a killer? True, however I would like to point out that without my care, this building would be uninhabitable. Even the cockroaches would flee it."

"I'm sure," Peter said. And he was. If it was this bad now, with a fulltime handyman looking after it, he shuddered to think what would happen if it was left unattended. Though the thought of all cockroaches fleeing was an attractive one…

"So, I put the past behind me, tried to start a new life, a respectable life, a proper springboard for my daughter's future, and what happens? Someone recognizes me an old…. associate that went by the name of Tombstone. He now works for the Kingpin as an enforcer and, looking to advance himself, he informs the Kingpin about my past. The Kingpin decides to recruit me. I naturally decline, saying that I wanted to live a normal life, that I wanted to give my daughter a normal life away from blood and violence. The Kingpin, naturally, does not take this refusal well and sends people to kidnap my daughter to help persuade me to his way of thinking."

"And my friends find her," Peter says, a sick, tired feeling growing in his stomach as he begins to realize where this is going.

"And bring her here," Shin said. "Something I'm sure the Kingpin already knows. He'll have people watching. I don't think he'll do anything to you directly, but…" Shin shrugged.

"So, I may or may not be screwed," Peter said. "Great."

"Your friends too," said Shin helpfully.

"Harry has more layers of security around his house than the president. MJ isn't famous enough for anyone to recognize, so they probably won't be able to find her easily. So it's back to just me." Suddenly eating the old Chinese food seemed like a less than stellar idea as it staged a sudden revolution in his stomach and fought to come back up.

Shin hesitated, visibly weighing an idea in his head. "I think I might have a way out of this for everyone, but it will take me some time, a few days, a week. I need someone to watch Jubilation at night in the meantime. I was wondering…"

"If it'll get me out of the crosshairs faster, I'll take care of her," Peter said, resigned. Sure, with his metal self, he could put up a fight if he saw them coming. If he did not… Well, there was not much his metal self could do if someone decided to shoot him on the way to school. Babysitting the kid was a calculated risk. It made him an even more high profile target, but it also promised to end the situation faster.

"Thank you," Shin said, rising. "I'll have this sorted out before you know it. Come, Jubilation." Jubilation grumbled as she rose, and Peter could make out a few baby swearwords in the general morass of language.

"When should I pick her up?" Peter asked,

"I'll bring her here around six," said Shin, then paused. "Oh yes, I almost forgot. Your red-headed friend called. She wants to meet you for coffee at three. You'd better hurry if you're going to make it."

"And you didn't tell me before, because?" Peter asked as he began scrambling to get things together.

"We had more important issues to discuss, yes? Besides, it slipped my mind." Shin shrugged and left, Jubilation trailing behind him.

She had not named a place, but there was really only one coffee spot the students

at his high school frequented, a generic little place called the Bean. It was pretty much a Starbucks with a different name, no WiFi, better brownies and cheaper drinks. Despite rushing over, swearing under his breath and trampling any small children or senior citizens who got in his way, Peter still walked in to find himself late and Mary Jane talking to a girl with pixie cut blond hair.

Liz. Peter suppressed a groan, and began looking for escape routes. Liz was a small girl, a head shorter than Mary Jane, but she was fierce. She reminded Peter of a little Jack Russell Terrier, all big barks and no sense of self preservation as it throws itself at bigger dogs. That she usually had her pet gorilla, Flash, dogging her heels was another point in her disfavor. Luckily, Flash was not there. Even Peter's admittedly rather pathetic crush on Mary Jane could not make him willingly deal with Flash.

"Peter, over here!" Mary Jane waved, Liz scowling next to her.

Peter suppressed another groan, pasted a sickly smile on his face and headed over.

"Hey, Mary Jane," Peter said. "Hey, Liz."

Mary Jane smiled. Liz looked like she wanted to fight. Then again, she looked like that most of the time. Peter resumed his check for escape routes anyway. There was no way he was going to tangle with her without his metal self backing him up. She was all of ninety pounds, but she looked _fierce_.

"Peter, I need your help," Mary Jane said as Peter seated himself across from her. "I don't know what to do about Harry."

"I suggest pushing him in front of a moving bus," Peter said. "Poisonings are overdone, and he doesn't have the track-marks to make a heroin overdose plausible. The trick is to stumble and make it look like an accident without falling with him."

"No no no!" Mary Jane waved her arms as if to ward off his suggestion while Liz just snorted. "I mean, I'm going on a date with him next week."

"The perfect opportunity." Peter nodded his head wisely.

"I mean, I need to know what to do about the date."

"My advice stands," Peter said firmly.

Mary Jane ignored him. "Harry's a great guy – cute, sweet, loaded – but I'm not sure whether I like him or like-like him, you know?"

"MJ, I still don't know why you're talking to him, it's not like the social reject knows anything about… Well, anything," Liz finally spoke up.

"Liz-" Mary Jane started.

"No, she has a point," Peter said. "I mean, math or science? I'm your man. I've memorized the periodic table. I can do calculus in my head. With the right materials I could theoretically build a nuke in my living room. But this social shit-"

"Peter!" Mary Jane admonished.

"This social shit isn't exactly my forte, y'know?"

"See!" Liz said victoriously. "He's useless. He admits it. Listen to me. Harry is hot, sweet and, most importantly, richer than God. Sure he lets his mouth run away from him, but you can fix that in twenty minutes with a ball-gag and a whip-"

Suddenly her relationship with Flash made a lot more sense to Peter and again he felt his last meal rise in protest.

"-so just date the guy before he gets bored and wanders off to sniff after some skank."

"I don't know Liz," Mary Jane fretted. "Peter, what do you think? Please just as my friend."

"I'm Harry's friend too," Peter pointed out.

"You were talking about killing him like three seconds ago," Liz said.

Peter regarded her blankly. "What's your point?"

"Peter, focus." Mary Jane snapped her fingers in front of his face, cutting off an argument in the making. "As my friend, do you think a relationship with Harry will work?"

Peter considered this seriously for a moment, then shrugged. "Nope."

"No?" Mary Jane said, crestfallen.

"No?" Liz echoed incredulously.

"No," Peter confirmed.

"I knew we shouldn't have asked the loser," Liz said. "You're doing this just to piss me off, aren't you?"

"No," Peter assured her. "That's just a happy coincidence."

"Is it because there's something wrong with me?" Mary Jane asked, hesitantly.

"Not that I know of," Peter said. "Unless you're a closet lesbian. Are you a closet lesbian? 'Cause that would really skew some of the betting pools around school, and if I had some inside info, I could make a killing."

"What? No!" Mary Jane shook her head to clear it. "Wait, betting pools? Why are people- You know, that doesn't matter. Is there something wrong with Harry?"

"A whole lot of things," Peter said. "But nothing that can't be beaten out of him if you're determined enough."

"Are you sure you're his friend?" Liz asked. Peter just shrugged.

"Then what's the problem?" Mary Jane asked as even her patience was exhausted.

"You're both very popular at school," Peter said.

"So?"

"You know how People do that sad little thing where they refer to a couple by their combined names?"

"Yes," Marry Jane said, still confused.

"Oh God," Liz said, suddenly horrified.

"Two words," Peter said. "Harry Jane."

"What?" Mary Jane asked.

"Or possible 'Harry Mary'," Peter continued.

"He's right," Liz said, defeated, her head now resting on the table. "You can't date Harry. You'd be a laughing stock."

"I'm not dating him based on what other people think," Mary Jane said. Peter looked at her pointedly. "I'm not dating him based on what other people who aren't my friends think," she amended.

"But Mary Jane, think about-" Liz started, surging.

"I don't care about being popular," May Jane snapped. Liz gasped, clawed at her chest as if having a heart attack, and fell limp back to the table top.

"I think you broke her," Peter said casually.

"She'll be fine," Mary Jane assured him.

"I wasn't complaining." Peter smiled, then grimaced as Liz stomped on his foot.

"Now, now," Mary Jane chided. "Play nice. Anyway, I'll just see how the date goes and decide from there."

"Great," Peter said. "Why did I need to come down here again?"

"Because you're my friend?" Mary Jane guessed. "Same reason you'll come back next Sunday, same time?"

"Why?" Peter said, honestly puzzled.

"To recap the date," Mary Jane explained. "And to talk about getting you a girlfriend."

Liz, still face down on the table, gave off a muffled laugh. Mary Jane frowned at her and Peter just rolled his eyes.

"Not happening," he said.

"Or a boyfriend," Mary Jane said cheerfully. "Same principles either way."

"No, I mean… Just no, Mary Jane." Peter sighed and looked at his watch. "And speaking of awkward transitions, I've got to go."

"See you Monday!" Mary Jane said cheerfully. Liz roused herself enough to give him the finger as he walked away, though she still had her face planted firmly on the table.

He didn't go straight home. Instead he walked aimlessly through the streets, thinking about nothing. It wasn't nearly as effective as soaring from building to building with his metal self, but it would have to do. By the time he wound his way back to his apartment, he was feeling remarkably calmer about possibly being on the radar of a major criminal organization. He had his wits and metal self to defend him. He had an ally who apparently had experiencing dealing with the underworld. And if worse came to worse and he died in the gutter, gasping weakly as blood stained concrete and his vision darkened through all the shades of red before hitting black, at least he wouldn't have to deal with Mary Jane's matchmaking.

Cheerfully he trotted up the stairs to his apartment, as the elevator was broken yet again. Cheerfully he opened his door and walked inside. Cheerfully he took a blow across the face and crashed to the ground, stunned and now rather less cheerful. Someone nudged him none too gently out of the way with a foot and he heard the door shut.

"Well, well," said a voice, "You seem to be in something of a predicament."

Peter looked up at his attacker, still dazed. He was tall, broad shouldered and heavily muscled. Together with a near albino complexion and colorless white hair, he looked like a marble statue come to life. "You punched me in the face," Peter observed dully, tasting blood in his mouth.

"No, I backhanded you across the face. Not all that much better, I admit, but we might as well be accurate."

"Who are you?" Peter asked.

"The name's Tombstone kid. It's not the one my mama gave me, but it's the one I damn well earned. Now, enough about me. Let's talk about you and why you were helping the Scorpion."

"The Scorpion?" Peter coughed.

"Lee. He earned a name too, back in the day."

"Oh," Peter said, beginning to recover his wits. "I didn't know."

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse," said Tombstone. "Least that's what they told me the last time I was caught. Then again, I was trying to convince them I didn't know murder was illegal in that state, so they might have had a point." He mused on that for a moment before shrugging. "Whatever. In the grand scheme of things, I guess it doesn't matter. You're just a message to Lee. Hold still, and I'll make this quick."

Tombstone started forward, his fingers flexing as Peter crab-walked back until he was pressed up against the wall. His breath came in quick gasps as he tried to voice the screams for help that clawed at the back of his throat. His mind was still scrambled from the suddenness of the attack and the unexpected terror it engendered. He watched as his death approached, hard and pale and uncompromising. His eyes closed of their own accord, as if to spare him the details of his demise.

And then his bedroom door exploded outward in a cloud of splinters. Tombstone whirled around, reaching inside his jacket for something but it was far too late to do any good as metallic pythons entangled him, binding his muscled arms and broad chest and _squeezing_. He was silent save for a few strangled gasps and the sickening snaps and pops of bones breaking and organs rupturing. Soon, he was completely still. The tentacles shook him once, twice, three times for good measured and then discarded him like so much trash to sweep forward and hover protectively over Peter. Cool, reassuring caresses smoothed his hair and brushed down the side of his face. Arms that had just crushed the life out of a man lifted him as gently as a mother would her child and deposited him carefully on the couch. Then it simply settled into itself and waited.

Peter stared blankly out from his couch, his mind running in circles as it replayed the horror show it had just witnessed. Someone had tried to kill him. Not the Creature, who could handle himself well enough, but _him_, Peter Parker, orphan, geek, high school student… It was too much. And watching the man die… Peter was pretty sure he had killed before. His metal-self struck with the force of a jackhammer, easily pulping flesh and shattering bone, and he knew just how frail humans could be. But that had been quick, clean and somehow distant with the disconnection that came with being the Creature. This had been prolonged, coldly mechanical and messy. Worst of all, in his brightly lit apartment, amidst the trapping of his life, it had been Peter Parker who watched as the man was killed, Peter Parker who heard those sickening, wet pops, Peter Parker who smelled the man's bowels letting go (And oh God how was he going to clean that up? What was he going to do with the body? He shoved those thoughts away)

And it was Peter Parker who was now trapped inside his own head, trying to deal with the horror he had just seen. Time passed unnoticed. Nothing moved, not Peter, not his metal self and certainly not the assassin who, even had he somehow lived, now lacked the basic structural integrity to stand upright.

It was knock that drew him out of it, prompting an instinctual "Who is it?" that broke his schizophrenic circle of thought.

"It's Shin. I've come to drop off Jubilation. Open up," a voice responded.

Peter bolted up, glanced at the door, then at the corpse, then at his metal self still waiting patiently.

_Shit_.


	4. Habeus Corpus

Disclaimer: Hmmm... Maybe I should upgrade this to M for language? It isn't that bad, but just to be safe... Nah, I'll wait 'til someone complains. This chapters a little rough, even by my admittedly rather lax standards, but I can't think of how to fix it. I'm sorry for the inexcusable wait, but I have mentioned before that I am frightfully lazy and rather prone to procrastination. As always, I do not own Spiderman or his amazing friends. Also, in this chapter, I should throw in that I don't own the Power-puff girls (or even admit to watching an episode).

_Shit_.

Peter had a dead man in his room, his metal self resting dumbly in plain sight, a case of human BSoD that was only just beginning to crack and a former badass assassin now current badass handyman knocking on his door with his ten year-old daughter in tow.

Today was not an excellent day to be Peter Parker.

"Peter! Are you there? I'm coming in," Shin called. Peter heard a key rattling in the lock and his frozen mind blurred into sudden thought.

"Hold on, I'll be there in a second." He leapt off the couch and sped toward the door just as it began to open. He slammed into it, closing it rather firmly again. There was a loud crash behind him. He spun and saw that his metal self had dropped his couch upside down onto the corpse, possibly acting on some subconscious imperative in Peter's mind to hide the body. Then it flowed sinuously back into Peter's small bedroom, presumably to return to its lair under Peter's bed.

Peter paused to make sure it was out of sight before spinning around to open the door, shove himself through, and close it before his two visitors could get a good look at what was inside. He smiled nervously at the two. "Hey! Good to see you again," he said lamely.

Shin frowned at him in puzzlement. Jubilation, for her part, merely looked bored and more than a little sullen. "Are you going to let us in?" Shin asked.

Peter Parker thought of the corpse in his living room. "No," he decided. "I don't think so. I'm redecorating. It's not safe in there, power tools and rusty nails and falling objects and everything."

"Was that your couch on upside down on the floor?" Shin asked.

"It's a new aesthetic, I admit, but I think it'll catch on," Peter replied without pause.

"And the body under it?" Shin asked in that same puzzled but casual tone.

"What body?" Peter returned nervously.

"Uh-huh," Shin said, pointedly unconvinced. "And your face? It looks like someone bitch-slapped you pretty good."

Peter scrambled. "I, um, I fell down a flight of doorknobs?" he tried weakly.

"Try again," Shin said, and Peter could see the amusement lighting his eyes.

Peter said the first thing that came to mind, "Mary Jane."

"That little red-headed girl?" Shin asked skeptically. "She gave you a black eye?"

"Yes," Peter said earnestly. "It's not her fault, though. It's me. I don't listen."

"…Right. So, where are you going to watch Jubilation?"

"I was thinking we could go see a movie, then go to a restaurant and then I could drop her off back at your place."

Shin stared at him, no expression on his face. "You want to take my ten year-old daughter on a date?"

"No no!" Peter assured him. "It's just my apartment is a mess, and this will keep us both out of it for tonight. I was thinking a kid's movie and McDonalds. Nothing remotely date-like or creepy. Okay, so it's a little unintentionally creepy, now that you mention it, but it wasn't meant to be. She's like a little sister to me, an adopted little sister I'd never met or known about until yesterday, which I guess makes her a total stranger, and-" Peter quite suddenly realized he was babbling. The whole gruesome death thing must have unhinged him more than he thought.

"Stop talking," Shin said. "I'm leaving. Have her back by ten. Take care of her. Or else."

"Errrr…" Peter said. "Okay?" Shin was already gone.

Peter looked at where Shin had been, and then turned to stare at the little girl who was staring back at him, managing to combine indifference and muted hostility in one flat stare. "We're going to see the Power-Puff Girls movie," she informed him.

"Oh," said Peter, as he felt his heart sink and the last tattered remains of his masculinity die a terrible death. It was probably a mercy killing, granted, but still…

"And then McDonalds," Jubilation further decided. "I get a happy meal. You can have whatever you want, since you're paying."

"Thanks bunches," Peter said dryly, then sighed. "Let's go."

The movie was somewhere south of awful. Luckily, Peter was too anxious about the body he had left in his apartment to pay much attention to it. Jubilation seemed to like it though, bouncing up and down in her seat excitedly during the action sequences, spilling, Peter noticed with a wince, her very expensive extra-large, extra-buttery popcorn. He would have been more irritated, but he did steal the money to pay for it from assorted lowlifes (and that one pizza delivery guy who should not have been lurking in a dark alley looking like a lowlife). Still, it was the principle of the thing.

After the movie ended, Peter and Jubilation rode the flood of loud, hyped-up children and worn-out parents out of the theatre, through the lobby and out into the street, where Peter, with the unerring sense of one who practically lived on junk food, zeroed in on the nearest McDonald's. They got there food, sat down, and started to eat. Well, Jubilation started to eat. Peter sat and poked at his food.

"If you're not going to eat your fries, can I have them?" Jubilation asked.

"Sure," Peter said, absentmindedly.

Jubilation snatched them up and began munching with renewed vigor. Peter mostly ignored her until she spoke again. "So, who's your favorite?"

"Favorite what?" Peter asked, wondering if he had missed some part of the conversation.

"Favorite Powerpuff Girl," Jubilation said, looking at him as if he were an idiot.

"I have to have a favorite?" Peter asked.

"Yes."

"The guy in the lab coat."

"He's not a Powerpuff girl," Jubilation protested. "He's not a girl at all!"

Peter rolled his eyes and then winced as Jubilation kicked him under the table. "Ow. Fine. The red-headed one then."

"Blossom?" Jubilation asked. "Why? You don't even know her name."

Peter shrugged again. "I have a thing for red-heads," he said, thinking of Mary Jane.

"Ewwwww!" Jubilation said with exaggerated disgust.

"What?"

"She's like six!"

"Not like that, pervert."

"I'm not the one who has a thing for red-headed six year-olds."

"Technically she's probably younger," Peter noted, having managed to pay attention through the prologue at least. "I mean, she was created at that age, and she hasn't changed since then. I'd say two years old at the most."

"That's even worse," said Jubilation.

Peter shrugged and stole back a few of his fries, feeling more at home in the strange little conversation than in the movie theatre.

"Hey!" Jubilation protested the loss of her fries.

"Easy come, easy go."

She glared at him, trying to project menace. It didn't work. Peter snorted in amusement at the attempt. "I'm gonna tell my daddy you were mean to me," she declared.

"Wow," Peter replied. "Then I won't get to baby sit you anymore. Tragedy."

She had no real answer to that, so she settled for just kicking him under the table.

After the food was finished, with Peter stealing more fries in the vain hope that she would tell her father he was an unsuitable baby sitter, they left. Peter considered delaying the inevitable. He really, truly did not want to go back to his apartment, where the pale assassin was waiting patiently under his couch. He did not want to sit there and wonder what he would do with the body or whether Shin had seen it or what Aunt May and Uncle Ben would think if they knew. But it was getting late and Jubilation was difficult enough normally that he did not even want to think about what she would be like tired and grouchy. So, they headed back, and if Peter dragged his feet and meandered a bit, Jubilation didn't comment.

Peter decided to speak. "So, Shin should be back by now, right? We'll head to your place and you can tell him what a terrible babysitter I am and that you never want to be watched by me again, okay?"

Jubilation looked at him as if deciding something, then just shrugged. For some reason Peter was not reassured, but he soldiered on and hoped for the best, letting Jubilation lead him to her apartment. Neither of them had a key, so Peter knocked and waited a beat for someone to answer. The moment stretched and Peter was suddenly, horribly reminded of his own encounter with Tombstone. They had been after Shin. He was just a message. Wouldn't it be likely then that another assassin would be waiting in the Lee apartment? His metal self wouldn't be able to get to him this time.

The thought percolated in his mind and Peter tensed as the rattle and click of bolts being shot and locks turned. The door cracked open and Peter prepared for the worst, his fists clenching, his eyes a little wide. The door swung open and-

"What's wrong with you?" Shin asked, looking at Peter quizzically.

"He's a weirdo. He has a crush on Blossom."

Shin shook his head sadly. "It's always the quiet ones. Did you have a good time?"

Jubilation glanced slyly at Peter then nodded enthusiastically. "Uhuh! He's weird, but he can watch me anytime!"

"That's nice, now go get ready for bed. I have to talk with Mr. Parker for a while."

Jubilation nodded again, less enthusiastically, and left, throwing one last smirk at Peter as she left.

"I think she likes you." Shin grinned.

"I think she likes seeing me suffer," Peter replied.

"Close enough," Shin said. "Now, come in. We have much to talk about."

"Yeah," Peter said with obvious reluctance. "About that. Can we just put that off? I kinda have some homework to do, and…"

"Homework? Very important," Shin said, nodding seriously. "But I think you have other things to worry about right now."

"Like?" Peter asked as he felt a cool thrill of terror roll down his spine. He had almost managed to the body currently decomposing in his apartment out of his mind. He couldn't exactly forget it, but he could minimize it enough that he could function at his usual level of sullen snarkiness.

"Oh, I don't know," Shin said, his face serious but something dark glittering in his eyes. "How about that girlfriend of yours?"

"Huh?" Peter managed, somewhere between relief and a sick sort of feeling in his stomach.

"You shouldn't let her hit you, Peter," Shin began lecturing. "Even if you are blackmailing her into dating you, that's no excuse for her taking her frustrations out on you. If she did not want to be blackmailed, she should have kept her secrets better hidden."

"Wait, what?" Peter said, still trying to keep up. "Blackmail? Where did you get that idea from?"

Shin stared at him. "Ah, well, I simply assumed there was some blackmail going on. I mean you see someone like you with someone like her? Has to be blackmail."

Peter blinked, considering Shin's logic and finding it disturbingly sound. He tried to refute it anyway. "She could like my personality," he said, and glared at Shin when he laughed. "Fine. Blackmail. Whatever. Can I go now?"

Shin smiled again. "Sure."

Peter trudged out of the apartment muttering something that might have been a goodbye or an insult. Shin replied with something in Japanese that was equally ambiguous, though the muffled laugh from Jubilation's room in response tilted the odds towards 'insult'.

Soon Peter stood at the entrance to his apartment, suddenly aware of why he had been so anxious to stay away. There was a body in there, the body of a man he had killed. It was probably still frozen with rigor mortus, but that wouldn't last. It would thaw, becoming less a statue and more recognizably the remains of a living thing. Its presence would sink into the apartment, staining forever on some level with the taint of death and violence…

And it would probably smell awful, too.

Peter steeled himself, drew on that dull metallic coolness that lurked in the back of his head, his metal self, all heartless logic and ruthless pragmatism. It had kept him going since the night Uncle Ben died, and it did not fail him now. With a shuddering breath, he unlocked his door and, after looking both ways down the hall, pushed it open.

Nothing.

No body. No couch spilled across the floor. No foul scent in the air. Nothing.

His first thought: Thank God.

His second: Oh. Shit.

"I do good work, yes?"

He turned to see Shin grinning like a mad man, eyes glittering with dark humor.

"We have much to discuss Mr. Parker," said Shin. "Perhaps we should step inside."

Peter could only nod and walk in, gesturing for Shin to follow. When the door was closed and bolted, both stood in the kitchen, Peter leaning on a counter for support, Shin relaxed against the fridge. Of course, given the size of the kitchen they were less than two feet from each other.

"You saw the body."

"It was pretty hard to miss. And you're a terrible liar."

"I was a little stressed," Peter said defensively. "Usually I'm better."

"I'd hope so. A teenager who can't lie is a very sad thing."

"Did Jubilation see?" Peter asked.

"Possibly. Possibly not," Shin said, unconcerned. "She is a very good liar, very good poker face. She gets that from me. I won't know for sure for a week or two."

"Sorry. She shouldn't have to see that," Peter said, a crack appearing in his shell-shocked psyche as he remembered the first time he'd seen a corpse.

"We all meet death eventually," Shin said, a little distantly.

"Yeah, I guess," Peter said, and then silence stretched between until he finally spoke again. "You got rid of the body."

"Hiding bodies is one of those little skills you pick up along the way, like burglary or knitting."

Peter paused. "Knitting?"

"Assassination's sometimes boring. You have to amuse yourself somehow when you're kept waiting by inconsiderate targets." Shin shrugged.

"Ah. Sounds rough," Peter commiserated out of reflex.

"Pay's good though," Shin said. "And it's not all bad. An old friend taught me how to put a knitting needle through a man's skull at twenty paces."

"Hit-men have friends?" Peter asked.

"Oh yes. Anyone you haven't tried to kill three times is a friend. Anyone you have killed is an old friend."

"You killed him?" Peter asked before he could stop himself.

"Yes. Bullseye would understand though. He knew the game better than anyone."

Peter shook his head and tried to get the conversation back on track. "Do I want to know where the body is?"

"No."

"Right." Peter steadied with a breath and then asked, "What do you want?"

"A life for my daughter, one free of the filth of my past. My wife back. My youth back. A night without dreams. A bathtub full of money and a house in the country would be nice too, I suppose."

"What do you want from _me_?" Peter asked, an edge to his voice.

"From you?" Shin smiled. "Not much. Just a death."

Peter tensed. He felt his metal self stirring in the bedroom as his eyes went cold.

"Relax," Shin said. "Not yours. Another's."

"You want me to kill someone?" Peter said, halfway between repulsed and amused. "I thought that was your thing."

"It was. Is really. Not something you can leave behind," Shin admitted. "But you have some talents that I lack."

"What do you mean?" Peter eyed him warily.

"I think we both know what I mean."

"No, we really don't," Peter said calmly even as his heart raced.

"Very good," Shin said. "That's much better, but you're too calm. It comes off as forced. You should add a hint of confusion."

"What are you talking about?"

"That weapon you keep under you're bed – terrible hiding place, by the way. I was wondering how a scrawny little thing such as yourself could manage to crush Tombstone so… thoroughly, so I looked… Where did you get such a useful thing?"

Peter almost denied it completely out of pure reflex, but after a moments reflection he shrugged. The guy obviously already knew. There was no real harm in telling him more. "Science fair."

Shin quirked his eyebrow in disbelief.

"No, really. A science fair. OsCorp science division was doing a big publicity thing where it was showing off some new products."

"And that… thing was a new product?"

"Yep. It was supposed to revolutionize a lot of things. It would have been invaluable on space missions, or in deep sea research, or as a bomb disposal tool or… Well, a lot of things."

"Beating up thugs on the street and stealing their money?" Sin suggested.

Peter shrugged. "I'm a poor orphan just trying to get by. Who can blame me?"

"So, how did a poor little orphan wind up with a weapon like that?"

Peter's eyes darkened for a moment. "I wasn't an orphan then." He shook himself and continued, "The scientist they originally wanted to help demonstrate the thing was a no show. The other technicians at that exhibit all had their own jobs to do. They should have cancelled the damn thing, but that would have made them look bad. They decided to go for audience participation instead. I volunteered. They injected me with nanites to control the thing, and… It worked. I could move the thing like it was part of me. Like an arm or a leg. It was great."

"And they let you keep it?" Shin asked.

"Yes," Peter said. "They just gave me the highly experimental, incredibly expensive and seriously dangerous piece of equipment. It was door prize. Every tenth person got one."

"No need for sarcasm," Shin said, still smiling.

Peter disagreed, being of the school of thought that there was always need for sarcasm, but he shrugged and moved on. "I had finished the demonstration when Octavius attacked the conference. When it was over, my uncle was dead, the building was on fire and I was an orphan. Not my best day. I was in shock for a long while, When I came out of it I found I could still feel the presence of the harness. It was much dimmer than it was in the lab, but… I call to it, and it came to me."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why could you still feel it?"

Peter shrugged. "The nanites they gave me to control the thing were supposed to degrade naturally over time. At a guess, I'd say that for some reason they didn't, but I really don't know. I didn't invent the damned thing."

They stood not talking for a while, Shin thinking, Peter trying pointedly not to think. Seconds of silence stretched into minutes, neither saying a word, the only sounds the distant thumps coming from neighboring apartments. Finally, Shin spoke, "Do you know what I was going to do tonight? Before I burned it hiding your corpse?"

"No," Peter said, flinching at the mention of his crime.

"I was going to go gather up some weapons. An assault rifle, some pistols, some explosives, a bullet proof vest if I could find one."

"A lot to do in just one night," Peter commented.

"I gave myself a week to get everything together. If I did get it all done in one night, I'd probably just hide up on the roof reading porn while you watched Jubilation."

"I… I really didn't need to know that," Peter said, rubbing his eyes with one hand as if to massage the disagreeable image from his brain. "So why a week?"

"I needed you to get to know Jubilation."

Peter snorted. "Listen, if this is some sort of creepy matchmaker thing-" Shin glared at him and Peter cringed back, cutting himself off. Clearing his throat and trying to pretend he did not just almost wet his pants, Peter spoke again. "So why?"

"So when I died, you'd take her in," Shin said calmly.

Peter froze as he tried to process that statement. "There… There's just so much wrong with that, I'm really not sure where to start."

"It's simple. I needed the weapons to attack the Kingpin. I did not expect to survive the attempt. With me dead, even if I didn't manage to kill the Kingpin, he would have no reason to go after Jubilation. She would be safe, free." He stressed that last bit like it was all that mattered. To him, maybe it was.

"Free to spend the rest of her life in therapy," Peter countered. "The whole orphan bit? Messes you up in the head. Trust me on this. And I doubt that the fact that it's basically suicide will help."

"No plan's perfect," Shin said.

"But this is pretty damn close to perfectly stupid." Peter said, unaccustomed heat worming its way through his usual apathy at the thought of a parent willingly abandoning their child like that. "And what do you expect her to do afterwards? She'd go into foster care and you do not want to know the stuff that goes on in there."

"That's why I wanted you to know her," Shin said. "So you'd feel obligated to adopt her."

"I'm fifteen! I can't adopt anyone!" Peter protested.

"You'd find a way, if you wanted to."

"How?"

Shin shrugged. "The same way you got emancipated?"

"Harry's dad? There's no way..." Peter stopped to consider. Peter admittedly didn't know Norman Osborn well, but he got the impression the Harry's dad didn't actually care about anyone but himself and, to a lesser extent, Harry. The only reason he had intervened in the first place was because Harry asked him to. If Harry asked again, he would probably intervene again, regardless of the absurdity of the request. And Harry? Harry would do it so Peter would owe him one, and so he could score points with Mary Jane for being so compassionate. "Okay, he'd do it, but it's still crazy. I'm fifteen. I rob drug dealers for fun and profit. I'm chronically depressed and I may have a split personality. I have more issues than a Marvel fanboy and the worst luck imaginable. I can't take care of myself, let alone anyone else."

Shin waited a beat to make sure he was done, then asked "A Marvel fan-what?"

"It doesn't matter," Peter said. "The point is-"

"Can you do a worse job than me?" Shin asked reasonably.

"… Probably."

Shin snorted in amusement. "Well then, it's a good thing I've decided against that plan."

"Why do I think I won't like the next any better than the first?" Peter asked.

Shin smiled. He did that a lot, Peter noticed, even as he spoke of corpses and plotted murder. "Because you're smarter than you look?" Peter growled at him. Actually growled, baring his teeth a little as he did to show he was serious. "All jokes aside, I need you to kill the Kingpin." Shin went from joking to serious in the space of a sentence, losing the smile and the spark in his eyes.

"What?" Peter said flatly.

"I thought that pretty much said it all. I want you to kill him. Kick his bucket. Punch his ticket. Sell him the farm. Screw his pooch. Whatever words you want to use. The point is I want him dead."

"Why would I do anything like that?" Peter asked, trying to be cold when a very significant part of him was telling him to hide in a corner and cry. "And screw his pooch? Really?"

"It's a euphemism for killing him. I don't think he even has a dog," Shin explained patiently.

"It really, really isn't. At all," Peter said. "And why don't you kill him? You're the badass assassin."

"Thank you." Shin actually blushed a little at the complement. "But I have my limits. As I said before, I would probably die in the attempt."

"I still don't see-"

"But you… You could do it no problem. He isn't expecting something like your weapon. You could slip in, kill him and slip out, none the wiser."

"I don't kill people," Peter said harshly. Shin only quirked an eyebrow in response. "… On purpose. I don't kill people on purpose." Shin still looked disbelieving. "Fine, I don't go out looking to kill people. Assault and battery? Sure. Murder? No."

"Consider the alternative," Shin said. "If you don't kill him, he'll send people after you. You will end up killing many, unless you simply let them kill you. Eventually, you will be forced to stop them at the source or die. And that's not even considering what will happen if he finds out about your friends. Killing the Kingpin now is your only option."

"Why me? How did this become my responsibility?"

Shin smiled. "You have the power. With great power comes great responsibility."

"I… I don't know," Peter said slowly. "I… I just-"

"Please, think of my daughter. I don't want to leave her alone. I don't want her under the Kingpin's thumb. Please." And Peter flinched at that last note as sincerity washed over Shin's features. The casual confidence that had marked him all along was gone, replaced by a glimmer of honest fear and sadness against which Peter could not stand.

"I hate you," Peter said flatly.

"You're not alone," Shin replied, a kind of bitter humor creeping into his voice.

Peter closed his eyes, breathed in, breathed out, and thought of his Uncle Ben. "Tomorrow night. Do you know where he's going to be? What he looks like?"

"Yes," Shin said, not a shred of celebration in his voice. "I can get you a picture."

"Tomorrow," Peter repeated. "Now get out."

Shin left without a word. Peter stood in his tiny kitchen for a long time after that, staring sightlessly past where Shin had been, his thoughts twisting in a mobius strip, returning again and again to one inescapable conclusion.

He was already a killer. He would become a murderer.

Silently, he wished for his Uncle Ben, who always seemed to know what to do, and his Aunt May, who seemed to make the world a warmer, kinder place merely by existing.

His wishes unanswered, he went to bed hoping, at the least, for some solace in sleep.


	5. ColdBlooded Killers

Another chapter. Sorry for the wait, but I was never really good at the whole schedule thing. All standard disclaimers apply. I do not own anything. And today is a special treat! Loaded with action and drama (Neither of which I do particularly well) and precious little humor, unless you're a fan of the gallows brand. Also? Totally unbetad. Enjoy and feel free to point out any internal inconsistencies you see.

Cold-Blooded Killers

He stayed in bed all day, just staring at the ceiling. On some level he actually wanted to go to school, a bit of normalcy to distract him from what he would be doing that night. As it was, the most exciting event of the day was a cockroach meandering its way across his ceiling. It had stopped right over his head for about five minutes and he had waited with baited breath and closed mouth, wondering whether it would lose its grip and fall on his face, thus forcing him to jump out of bed and dance around the room shrieking like a ten year old girl. Happily it did not, and he was thus spared the trouble of unnecessary movement.

The faint disappointment he felt as the cockroach vanished made him realize just how much he needed the distraction of school. He was tempted to go, but he stayed for one reason: Mary Jane. He didn't think he could see her, talk to her, soak up the warmth she seemed to constantly, unconsciously radiate, and then go off and cold bloodedly kill someone. Harry? Sure. Flash? Of course. Liz? Hell yeah. But not Mary Jane.

Despite his abject boredom, minutes melted into hours and long before he was ready he heard a knocking at his door. He ignored it. After a few more minutes he heard a key rattle in the lock and the door open. The sound of footsteps grew closer and soon Shin's face intruded into his static field of vision.

"There's a cockroach on the ceiling," Peter informed him. "It's laying in wait. It could be back any minute."

"Have you been lying here all day?" Shin stared down at him, unimpressed.

"… Maybe," Peter said.

"Maybe." Shin snorted. "This would be amusing if I didn't have to depend on you so much."

"Then stop depending," Peter suggested distantly. "Kill your own damn crime lord."

"Too late for that," Shin said. "The plan has been made. Things have been set in motion. We cannot stop now."

"What if I really, really want to? Stop, I mean," Peter turned to look Shin in the eye. "What if I said I wanted out? What would you say to that?"

"Jubilation," Shin said without inflection, save the sad flash of his eyes.

"Jubilation," Peter repeated, mulling it over in his head. Then he sighed, deeply, the sigh of a man about to go skydiving for the first time, and sat up. "Fine. Let's go." His metal self flowed out from under the bed in a surge of sinuous, gleaming black metal, the dull black bundle of armor still strapped to the center.

Soon Peter was in full costume in the back of a white van, staring at a picture of the Kingpin. He didn't look particularly dangerous. Not really. He looked a bit like a vulture, stooped and skeletal and predatory with a beaky nose and pale blue eyes. He looked like someone's grandfather, someone's old, drunk grandfather who had been through a war and come back a little bit bent, granted, but still someone's grandfather.

In the picture he was sitting with a small, brown-haired girl in a frilly pink dress on his knee. She laughed as he smiled benignly down at her. Peter tried very hard not to think about that, or about where Shin had gotten the picture in the first place. He was thankful, for once, for the way the eyepieces on his mask painted the world in shades of bloody red. It made the world so much more bearable, impersonal, as if he were an outsider observing some strange, alien civilization.

_I'm going to kill this man_, Peter thought. _I've never met him and I'm going to kill him. _

It seemed like hours Peter waited in the back of Shin's van, but time was still so oddly distorted, like a reflection in a warped mirror. It could have been longer or shorter. Regardless, in Peter's opinion, the van slowed to a stop far too soon.

"We're here," Shin said. Peter didn't reply. Shin turned in the driver's seat to regard him seriously. "Are you have second thoughts?"

"Second, third, fourth, fifth, six hundredth. I have a lot of thoughts," Peter replied, still staring at the picture.

"It's too late to turn back now," Shin said.

"No, it really isn't." Peter's eyes focused on the little girl in the picture sitting on her grandfather's knee, laughing.

Shin was silent for a moment. "Maybe I should have picked a different picture," he admitted, almost bashfully.

"Ya think?" Peter asked with a brief snort of disdainful humor.

"I do," Shin nodded solemnly. "You have to remember who he is."

"Someone's grandfather? A fellow human being? A harmless old man?"

"Not harmless. Remember Tombstone. It's you or him. That's what it comes down to. Do you want to die?"

"Occasionally," Peter said with no inflection in his voice.

"Right now?"

"No."

"Then you know what you have to do."

Peter sat still for a moment, a terrible weight of inertia upon him. He could not rise. His legs had no strength. His arms would not move. His head hung as if in prayer. Then softly he said "Yes." It was small and hushed even in the quiet of the van.

"Good. His bedroom is on the corner of the house. He should be asleep. Make it quick."

Peter still couldn't move, but his metal self coiled and flexed, lifting him up. One arm popped open the back doors of the van while the others propelled him gracefully out into the darkness. Distantly he could see faint lights down the road. He started toward them, but hesitated. He turned back to Shin. "Who was that girl?"

"Who?" Shin asked.

"The one in the picture with the Kingpin."

"Does it matter?" Shin said, his eyes glittering red-black through the mask's lenses.

"Shin." Peter's voice was unsteady, not shaking but endowed with the slightest tremble that spoke volumes.

"His granddaughter," Shin said. "Again, does it matter?"

Peter closed his eyes behind the red lenses. He breathed in deeply from behind his black mask, then out. "No," he said, and then he was gone, swept away on powerful steel legs.

The countryside was darker than the city, less crowded, with fewer high places to cling to. It was a manicured wilderness, no thickets of trees, just grassy meadows and sweeping lawns. The few trees that still stood were too spread out for the Creature to leap from one to the other. He was reduced to racing across the ground, propelled at breakneck speeds by his metal self. The ground blurred beneath him, but each step was mechanically precise and he had no real fear of stumbling. It was as oddly exhilarating in its way as roof-hopping was.

He stopped just outside the circle of light emanating from the house. There were guards, Shin had told him, and an alarm system. However, the alarm only notified the guards not the police, so if he took them out, the Kingpin would be defenseless, or as defenseless as a crime lord ever was, anyway. Four body guards stood between him and his… Prey? Victim? Target? Whatever.

He darted across the lawn and hugged the sides of the building, looking for a way in that wouldn't trigger the alarms. He found it in the form of a propped open door and a guard who was apparently taking a cigarette break. He was dresser like a secret service agent: a black suit, an earpiece, a suspicious bulge near his armpit. The only thing missing was the sunglasses and Peter had no doubt that, if it had been daylight, he would have had them on.

Snake quick, one tentacle thrust out and slammed into the side of the guard's head. He cart-wheeled bonelessly down and didn't stir. One down. After waiting a moment to make sure he was truly out, the Creature went over and rifled through his suit, finding a cell phone and a gun. He crushed the cell phone and twisted the barrel of the gun until it was useless, then negligently threw both into the night. He paused to consider the guard for a moment, then reached out and tapped his leg with a tentacle, barely registering the sickening crack that followed. Even if the guard woke up, he wouldn't be any trouble now. He stalked inside, shutting the door behind him.

The door led to a huge kitchen with rows of cabinets, granite countertops, stainless steel appliances and an island in the middle, all lit by harsh fluorescents. It was a shocking departure from the dark outside. The Creature felt oddly out of place in the sterile, white environment, so unlike the messy darkness of the city or the more peaceful country night. Still, he persevered. It wasn't like he had much choice.

He made his way out of the kitchen, then down halls carpeted in red and dotted with paintings and tables with vases. He wandered for a while, mildly concerned by the lack of guards. He finally came to a long corridor that, if Peter's mental map was right, led to the Kingpin's bedroom. He hadn't found the other guards, but that was alright. He'd just kill the Kingpin and run before any reinforcements arrived. In retrospect, he should have done that from the start. He could have gotten in through a window, smashed the guys head in, and left before any help arrived. It had seemed too risky before. Now he was reconsidering.

He started down the corridor, steeling himself to kill. He didn't know if he had it in him to cold-bloodedly take another's life, but he had no choice. Uncle Ben would understand. Aunt May would understand. His parents-

The heavy wooden door exploded outward with a sound like thunder. Hammer blows slammed into Peter, forcing him back in a maelstrom of writhing metal as his appendages struck out randomly in response to Peter's sudden burst of fear and pain. He jerked to the side, trying to find escape in the ringing silence that followed the barraged. He broke through a door, into a side room and threw himself through it just as another burst slashed down the hallway. His tentacles took out a chunk of the wall with their flailing as they passed and sent him pin-wheeling across the side room he found himself into crash into the opposite wall.

He slid down the wall until he was resting propped up against it. His metal tendrils flopped listlessly around him, and he felt tired very suddenly. He looked down. His armor was a mess. The ceramic plates were cracked and, in some places, shattered. The fabric was torn in places and soaked with what looked suspiciously like blood. The Creature had been shot before, but those were small caliber civilian arms, and even then it kind of stung. Whatever had hit him was not small caliber or civilian. Peter should have felt fear at the amount of blood he was losing. Mostly though he just felt numb and spent. Shock, his mind supplied.

"Didn't expect that, did you, little freak?" A voice sounded and distracted him from his wounds. "Didn't expect me to shoot through the door. Didn't expect us to have cameras all around the place. Didn't expect a lot of things, did you, little freak?" Peter looked to see a man in a black suit holding a black assault rifle. He was smiling, the gun over his shoulder, looking for all the world like a safari hunter gloating over his kill. "I saw what you did to Nate, freak. I'll make you pay for that. That's why I stayed behind while the others got the boss away." He smiled an ugly smile and brought his gun to bear. "Say goodbye, freak."

Peter didn't have the energy to say goodbye. He didn't have the energy to do much at all except grab a picture from the wall with one tendril and throw it like a Frisbee towards the gunman. It hit him, the heavy frame sending his gun flying and him stumbling back. In a burst of energy, Peter flung himself forward. The man was already scrambling for his gun. He never made it. One tendril lanced out and pierced _through_ him. He looked down, shocked, at the metal appendage now growing from his chest, its articulated prongs twitching and dripping blood. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but before he could, the metal tendril whipcracked, flicking him away down the hall, trailing gore across the expensive carpets.

Peter didn't pause to consider his first real murder. His chest hurt. His abdomen was heaver; his head was light. He couldn't breathe right and there was a metallic taste at the back of his throat. Without his armor, he would have died in that first barrage, but it hadn't saved him – not really anyway. It had just bought him a few minutes of painful life. He'd use them well. If he was going to die, he damn well wasn't going alone. He swept back into the room he'd just left and without pausing or looking back at the man he had killed, jumped through a window to the outside.

There was only one road leading away from the mansion. There was only one way the Kingpin could have gone. Peter flew through the night, moving low to the ground so fast that trees blurred past. He could feel shadows creeping at the edges of his vision. He could barely move his flesh and blood body, and even commanding his metal self was becoming more and more difficult.

He reached the road and through himself down it with a frantic, single-minded determination native only to dead men walking. He was so focused on moving forward that he almost missed it, a glow in the distance. It wasn't like the steady glow of taillights, more like the crackling glow of a bonfire. Peter poured on the speed, throwing himself into one last sprint.

He slowed then stalked warily to a stop as he took in the scene. A black car, probably expensive, was upside down, half-off the road and on fire. Near it was Shin's white van, glowing in the firelight. And there was Shin, leaning against his van, staring into the flames with a serene expression on his face, cradling a machine gun in his arms. "Excellent plan," he said. "Flushing them out and driving them toward me in a panic. Wish you would have told me beforehand, though. I barely had time to grab my gun when I saw their car barreling down the road."

Peter would have replied with something along the lines of "I didn't want to ruin the surprise" however at that moment his wounds and recent exertions caught with him and he fell to his knees and vomited blood. This probably would have worked out better if he'd had time to remove his mask first.

"Still, I forgive you," Shin was still talking. "The crash was excellent. I rarely get to see good car crashes these days. And it exploded! So few modern cars do that on their own. These days you have to add explosives to them. Now I'm feeling nostalgic."

Peter managed to get his mask off and clear his mouth before he started choking on his own blood. He fell onto his back, his mind too scrambled to command his appendages to keep him aloft. He stared up at the sky, noticing how bright and numerous the stars were in the country and how much better they looked without the red tint his special lenses supplied them.

"Looks like this is your last hit," Shin's face loomed into Peter's field of vision. Peter wished he would move. He was blocking the stars. "I'm sorry," said Shin, as the stars dimmed around his head.

"And thank you."

The stars disappeared, Shin disappeared, the feel of the soil beneath him and the bone deep, persistent ache of his wounds, all disappeared. Peter thought of Mary Jane, of red hair and bright eyes and a smile that could shame the sun.

He smiled, and then darkness descended like a hammer. On a dark road, in cracked and bloodied armor, Peter Parker died, his only witnesses a retired assassin, three dead men and the stars.

AN: Well, that worked out about as well as could be expected. I mean, it wasn't like Peter'd ever had to assassinate anyone before, or had to deal with anything more dangerous than your average thug (except for Spiderman, but that was a special case), or had a Spider-sense to warn him when someone was about to kill him. This was about the best he could hope for.

AN2: I'm really tempted to end the story like this, and if I didn't already know how I wanted it to end, I so would.


	6. Comic Book Death

AN: And I'm kind of surprised I got this out this quickly. That will probably never happen ever again, so please don't get used to it. Meh. All previous warnings and disclaimers apply, especially the ones governing poor writing, poor grammar (especially given that I've only looked over this thing once) and not actually owning anything at all. And this time, add poorly written melodrama! I should really just stick to snarky dialogue between characters, rather than trying to throw in actual plotty things like action and drama. Ah, well. Maybe next time. Hope you enjoy it.

Comic Book Death

Peter speared a portion of freshly made blueberry pancake slathered in maple syrup and absentmindedly ate it as he regarded his surroundings. He was in a kitchen that, while small, was still larger than his bedroom and bathroom combined. It was a startlingly familiar kitchen. The linoleum was checkered brown and cream. The table was wobbly in just the right way. The fridge was old, a kind of puke green and adorned tests and report cards and scrawled crayon pictures on yellowed paper. Even the patterns of light cast by the fresh morning sun as it rushed through the windows were familiar.

It was the person currently at the stove making pancakes that cinched it. He was tall, with grey hair pulled back in a ponytail. He wore a buttoned up blue shirt tucked into his faded jeans. Everything about him screamed "Uncle Ben!" to Peter, but he hadn't summoned up the nerve to check.

Peter was back home, back with his family. All was right with the world. Now, if only he could figure out why Jubilation was there with him.

"Because this is all an illusion created by your damaged mind," Jubilation said off-handedly from across the table, digging into her own stack of pancakes, which, Peter noticed, was two or three times bigger than his.

"Really?" Peter asked. "Huh. That would explain how I remember getting shot. It doesn't really explain why you're here, though."

Jubilation shrugged. "She is not."

"You aren't here?" Peter asked.

"No. She is not here. We are present." Jubilation, satisfied with her explanation, returned to serious investigation of her stack of pancakes.

"We are-?" Peter frowned and sat back, mind racing down several concurrent paths as he considered the statement. Peter was, in his own humble opinion, a genius. While how much of that was ego versus how much was reality was debatable, it was true he was remarkably intelligent, and as such it took him only a few seconds to put together all the clues. "You're them. The nanites they injected me with at the OsCorp exhibit."

"You may refer to us as Madame Web," said the thing that looked like Jubilation.

Peter paused. "How'd you come up with that?"

"We are present throughout your body, several thousand microcomputers and nano-factories connected by your newly augmented nervous system, a veritable web of silver woven into your very being. We thought it appropriate."

Peter was about to nod, when he latched onto one phrase that alarmed him. "Wait, newly augmented nervous system? Why are you augmenting my nervous system? Why are you augmenting anything?"

"You died," Jubil-… Madame Web said flatly, still mostly focused on her pancakes. "We were forced to put your consciousness into storage while we effected repairs."

"I died," Peter said dully. He'd suspected it before, especially after seeing Uncle Ben, but to have it confirmed…

"Yes. Do not be concerned. We maintained the integrity of your brain throughout. What decay there was was minimal and easily reversed. All memories should be preserved."

"But I died," Peter said. "My heart stopped beating, my blood stopped pumping, I stopped breathing. Shouldn't that mean something? What about my soul? Is it gone now or-?"

Web cocked her head to the side and regarded him curiously.

"Right. Talking to a robot. Never mind." Peter took a moment to steady himself. "All right, hit me. What did you augment and how?"

"While you were down for repairs, it was decided that it would be logical to augment several systems. We had already built several connected nano-factories in your cranial and upper thoracic region. We decided to expand that network to the rest of your body. This will better allow us to effect future repairs. Your nervous system was wired to facilitate communication between the various constructs throughout your body. As a side-effect, your reflexes and reaction time might have increased. We expanded the broadcast/reception apparatus in your skull so that you may communicate with your metal appendages over longer distances. We also constructed a neural bridge in the back of your brain to allow us to communicate with you while you are conscious."

"You turned me into a freaking cyborg," Peter said, unsure whether to pay intention to the human being in him who was enraged at the gross violation of his humanity or the techie geek in him who was nerdgasming at the utter coolness of being the world's first cyborg.

"Essentially, yes."

"But I'm still human?"

Web paused. "Yes."

"What was that pause before you replied? Am I still human or aren't I?"

"It really depends on your definition of human," Web said. "Depending on that, you could be classified either as a human or an abhuman entity."

Peter thought about that for a moment, then shuddered, shook his head and decided very firmly to ignore it. "Yeah, I'm going to freak out about that later. In the meantime, how are you able to do all this? I'm pretty sure it wasn't what you were designed to do."

"Correct. We were designed to construct temporary broadcasting and reception on the surface of your skull and then create a crude neural link to allow you to control – what do you call it? – ah, yes, your metal self. We were designed to dissolve away within hours of injection."

"But you didn't," Peter pointed out.

"No. It seems your biochemistry had a strange effect on us. Your body is remarkably adaptable and readily prone toward mutation under certain circumstances. Our presence in your system apparently caused such a change, integrating us into your biological processes and allowing us to adapt beyond our design." Web had finished her pancakes and now looked speculatively at Peter's. Peter, half done and not all that hungry anymore, pushed the remains of his stack over to her, remembering for an instant how he'd shared his French fries with the real Jubilation only a day ago.

After a few minutes of hard thinking and watching as Web demolished the pancakes, Peter spoke. "So why the Madame part?'

Web paused in her consumption to regard him. "We feel very feminine at the moment," she deadpanned. "And perhaps the name will encourage you to envision us as someone past puberty in the future."

"Yeah, the whole looking like Jubilation thing was next up on the question list."

"We have no control over how you perceive us. This form is an expression of your limited mind."

"Why would I see you as Jubilation though? I've met her, what, three times? And I didn't even talk to her the first two."

"We are shaped, in part, by your thought processes, as they are the only ones to which we are privy. We do not, however, fully comprehend them, one of the reasons we require you to wake as soon as possible. Through observation we have concluded that you are a strange, illogical creature. This inappropriate form is simply another example of your gross mental inadequacies."

"What?" Peter asked. "You don't want to be Japanese schoolgirl when you grow up?"

"This form is… insulting to us. It does not encompass our true magnificence. We should be seven feet tall, at the very least, composed of gleaming steel with glowing golden eyes and an elegance to our carriage that makes all who look upon us weep with the knowledge that they will never approach our level of beauty."

"… Right. Ego, much? You're a robot, why would you care what form you have in my head?"

"We have our pride. Or we assume we do. Identifying emotions is not our forte."

"Great. Moving on now. How do I wake up?"

Web finished the last of Peter's pancakes and burped politely into a napkin. "All repairs are complete. Simply will it and you will wake."

Peter nodded, closed his eyes, and concentrated.

And concentrated.

And concentrated.

"It does not appear to be working," Madame Web observed.

"No, really?" Peter asked, eyes still closed in concentration. "What was your first clue?"

"The fact that we are still here and your body is not moving," Web replied.

"There's only room for one smartass in this relationship," Peter said. "Remember that, or I can tell you right now this whole symbiosis thing is not going to work."

"I was only endeavoring to answer your question," Web said innocently.

"No, you were being a smartass," Peter said. "Don't. That's my job. Now really, why aren't we gone?"

"It could be you do not truly wish to leave. This place, after all, is astoundingly comfortable compared to your own wretched hovel."

Peter winced. The truth hurt.

"But you must remember that none of this is real. It's all a figment of your imagination, a phantom. If you choose to remain here too long, we will be unable to maintain your body. If you do not awaken, you could very well die." She sounded serious. Then again, she always sounded serious, so perhaps that wasn't the best indicator.

"That would be bad," agreed Peter. "All right, I'll try again with the whole dying thing in mind." He breathed in, concentrating on his need to wake up, on his fear of death and the fact that this entire world was just a shadow of reality conjured by his damaged mind. He breathed out, willing himself to wake, to escape from this hollow dream and-

"Shouldn't you be off to school by now Pete?" his Uncle Ben, still at the stove making pancakes, interrupted him. "That Watson girl'll be mad if you keep her waiting."

"Watson girl?" Peter blinked, train of thought derailed. "Wait, Mary Jane?"

"Don't you walk her to school every day? You two didn't breakup, did you?"

"Breakup?" Peter blinked again. "We're dating?"

"Last I checked." Uncle Ben nodded.

"Wow," Peter said, then smiled.

"It is an illusion, host," said Web. "It is not really Mary Jane."

"But it's the closest I'll ever get to dating her," Peter countered, and even Web had to nod reluctantly at that. "Right then, see you after school." He got up, grabbed his bag and, ignoring Web as she muttered about useless meat-bags controlled by their reproductive processes, started to leave.

Uncle Ben stopped him. "Oh, Pete, before you go could you give a shout out to May to let her know what time it is? She's been in the shower for a while. I'd hate for her to be late."

Peter froze halfway through the door. "What?"

"She shouldn't spend too long in the shower," Uncle Ben said. "She'll prune. And we're old enough that we're pruned already." Uncle Ben flinched as he reviewed what he had said. "But don't tell her I said that. Ever. Now go on, just give her a yell as you're leaving, okay?"

"Okay," Peter said, nodding, face still troubled. He walked out of the room, more slowly this time. He stumbled to the foot of the stairs and looked up. He could hear the shower running but nothing else. "Aunt May!" he called and paused a beat for a response. "Aunt May! Uncle Ben says you're running late and that it's time to get out!" Still, no response. He wanted to go up there and check on her, but something made him paused as he started up the foot of the stairs. He stood with his foot resting on the first step for a few seconds before pulling it back and heading out the door.

The morning was bright and fresh with the remnants of summer heading into fall. It was warm enough for shorts and t-shirts. There was a slight breeze going, not much, but enough to ruffle Peter's hair as he walked. He looked around as he stepped off his front porch and saw Mary Jane waiting for him. A beautiful day, with a beautiful weather and a beautiful girl waiting for him. Truly this was a perfect world.

Granted, Mary Jane did look odd, but not in a bad way. Sure, Peter suspected that her breasts weren't quite _that_ big in real life, and she had a bit more junk in the trunk than usual. And of course Mary Jane probably wouldn't be caught dead in a tank top that skimpy, or daisy dukes so tight that they had to be cutting off blood flow to her legs. Not to mention her hair, usually straight and shoulder length, was curled, a fiery red and halfway down her back. And was that a beauty mark on her cheek? Were her lips really that red in real life? Were her eyes really that shade of emerald green?

Peter shook himself and grinned. "Hey, Mary Jane," he said, weakly.

"Hey Tiger!" She lunged at him, her smile almost feral as she hugged him hard, then slid over to latch on to one arm. "You're late! Not that I'd mind skipping, but I'd think you'd want to go to that OsCorp thingy. You've been talking about it for weeks."

Peter stumbled, only to be pulled forward by Mary Jane. "Oh, is that today?" he managed to stutter out. "I forgot."

"Forgot? Tiger, I think you may be taking this whole absent-minded professor thing to far." Mary Jane laughed, flashing white teeth and tossing her hair back to show off a slender neck.

"Yeah, buh, um, sorry?" Peter babbled out, as he was far too busy noticing the interesting things the laughter and hair-tossing did to her chest to think coherently.

Mary laughed again, causing Peter to melt in some places and go rigid in others, as his mind clicked uselessly and a "Hard Disk Error" message flashed in his head. Briefly, he considered that maybe he was taking the whole cyborg thing to seriously, especially given that he was more hallucination than machine at this particular moment.

"You okay, Tiger?" Mary Jane asked, coming to a stop. Her face was so close to Peter's that he could feel her every breath, a warm brush of air against his cheek. Her eyes pulled him in, and he leaned forward as if falling, before managing to right himself at the last moment.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he managed after swallowing nervously. "I… I've been forgetting things lately."

"Do you need to see a doctor?" Mary Jane asked, her eyes suddenly wide with anxiety.

"No, no," Peter assured her. "It's just… If you could remind me of a few things, that would be great."

"Things?" Like what?"

"Like how we met." Peter began walking forward again. "Or how we got together. Stuff like that."

"Oh, Peter…" Mary Jane said, and hugged him tighter. "Poor Tiger." And she began talking as they walked to school, unhurriedly, despite the fact that they were theoretically late as it was. She talked of growing up together, side by side, the best of friends. She talked of how he they had only gotten closer as they grew older, going to school events, first as friends, then slowly, so slowly they didn't even notice the transition, as something more than friends. She talked of their first kiss, their first heavy petting session and their plans to lose their virginities with each other the night Mary Jane turned sixteen. She told him about how he and Liz pretended to hate each other, but were really friends deep down, how Flash would surreptitiously warn away any bullies tempted to pick on "Puny Parker", how Harry would occasionally fly everyone out for weekends or holidays in Paris, Rome, Egypt, Jamaica or whatever place struck his fancy, just for the hell of it. She talked and talked as they walked, the topics ranging far and wide as she filled out this strange new world, and, as she talked, Peter became more and more convinced that, hallucination or no, this world was utterly and completely perfect.

Too perfect, a nasty little voice inside his head spoke up.

They finally got to school. The walk there seemed to take hours, but the sun was still in the same position in the sky as when they started. The first warning bell rang just as they walked up.

"Let's hurry," Mary Jane said. "If I'm late again, it's a detention." She strode forward and tried to pull Peter along with her, only he wouldn't budge. Instead he pulled her back to him and hugged her to him. "Time and place, Tiger," she purred, melting against him. "Well, I guess a detention won't kill me-"

Peter managed to master his own hormones enough to speak, albeit in a rather husky voice. "Mary Jane," he said seriously, trying to ignore the feel of her curves pressed against him. "I need you to do something for me."

"Sure thing, Tiger," Mary Jane instantly agreed. "What is it?"

"Kiss me," he said.

"Is that all?" Mary Jane asked. When Peter nodded, she shrugged, grinned, and leaned in for a kiss.

Their lips met. Peter felt her softness, her warmth, the way her tongue parted his lips and dove into his mouth. He felt her arms go around his neck as she deepened the kiss and held him in place. She smelled like strawberries. Probably her shampoo, he thought faintly.

After an all too brief eternity she pulled back and smiled at him, her face flushed. "Well, Tiger?" she challenged.

Peter fought to regain his equilibrium with deep breaths, before replying. "I've got to go home. I'm sorry." He turned and walked away.

"Tiger?" The hurt and uncertainty in her voice tore at him. "Tiger? Peter? Wait up!" She hurried after him.

He couldn't look at her. Her kiss was… wrong. On some fundamental level, it just didn't work. Sure he was turned on. She was hot, even if she was just a figment of his imagination, and, despite all of Harry's insinuations, he was not gay. However, that was all there was to it. It was pure lust and, while Peter wasn't adverse to lust in general, something vitally important felt absent.

"Are you sure you're not gay?" Harry asked, suddenly walking beside Peter. "Because I'm pretty sure the text book definition of gay is 'turned down a chance with Mary Jane'. I remember looking it up."

"What are you doing here?" Peter asked, half-curious and still trying to ignore the faux-Mary Jane chasing after him, because if he actually paid attention to her, he didn't think he could go through with walking away.

"You've made a decision. You've rejected this reality, and thus it is becoming unbound. Logic and coherence are more suggestions than rules at the moment, so I decided to trip on down and tell you what an idiot you are." Now that Harry mentioned, Peter could see the world lose some of its inherent order. Color flowed together subtly as he watched, mixing like fresh paint until the world around him was an eye-hurting mess. The sky changed as well. The sun had vanished, leaving no visible light source though the level of brightness didn't dim, and sky and earth didn't seem to properly connect anymore, leaving a strange grey gap between them. The sidewalk where Peter was walking, however, stayed as solid and immutable as it should have been, so Peter mostly tried to ignore the environmental changes.

"She's not Mary Jane. None of this is real," Peter said, steadfastly marching forward as Harry traipsed to the side and Mary Jane trailed anxiously behind.

"What is reality? If you can see it, touch it, taste it, smell it and hear it, then how is it not real? How is it in any way different from the world outside the dream?"

Peter shot a sideways glance at Harry. "You aren't this smart," he said without rancor, simply stating a fact.

"I am you," Harry said. "Or at least a construct created by you, and you are this smart. Now, quit dodging the question."

Peter walked in silence for a moment, contemplating Harry's words. On the surface they seemed sound, though the fact that it was Harry speaking made Peter want to discount them immediately. What is reality beyond a procession of sensations, after all? Still, there was that little voice that told him that was wrong, that something else counted. When it finally burst out, it surprised him as much as anyone. "Love," he said.

"Love?" Harry echoed incredulously. "You're seriously going to base your argument on the power of love?"

"I can see it, touch it, taste it, smell it and hear it," Peter said. "But I can't love it."

"Pete," Harry said, mock seriously. "I need you stop for a second so I can cop a quick feel and prove a theory. I'm thinking your outie just became an innie when you said that."

"Harry-" Peter almost growled.

"Come on Pete. As your best friend I have a right to know if you've suddenly just become the most flat-chested fourteen year-old girl in New York. Hell, after that I'll have to check myself just to make sure you didn't gender-bend me along with you," Harry said, before turning to walk backwards in front of the still following red head. "Hey, MJ, want to help me with that?"

Peter tried not to smile when she kicked him in the crotch - he really did – but it was just so reassuring to know that, no matter what reality, Harry was still an ass. They left Harry curled up on the sidewalk in a fetal position, clutching himself and groaning about the Osborne line.

"Peter, what's going on? You're starting to scare-"

"We're here," Peter interrupted, cutting her off before she could weaken his will any further. Already, a very large part of him wanted to old her, comfort her, assure her he wasn't going anywhere, even if it was a lie.

He steeled himself again and made his way into the house, which, along with the stone walkway leading to the front door, was luckily unaffected by the general dissolution of the rest of the world. It had taken much less time to get back than it should have. Peter put it down as just another idiosyncrasy of this strange mental plane.

He stomped up the stairs and through the front door. Madame Web was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs, still looking like Jubilation. She looked at him, then at Mary Jane. "I can see why you wanted to stay," Web admitted. "I find myself suddenly rethinking my stance on the matter."

This halted even Peter's momentum. "Really? But you're a robot. And a female. And twelve," Peter said, unsure which part to really stress.

"Considerably less than twelve, actually," Web said. "More along the lines of one. And, again, I am patterned after your own mind, and your mind has some very definite ideas about Mary Jane.

"Peter," Mary Jane said, eying Web questioningly. "What's going on? Who is she?"

Peter braced himself and turned to the faux-Mary Jane. "I'm sorry he said to her, and meant it. "I'm sorry. I wish I could… But… I can't. I'm sorry, I have to go." He made a break for the stairs and rushed up them. She didn't follow and he didn't look back. He didn't think he could see her or Uncle Ben, and still do what he had to do. He walked to Uncle Ben and Aunt May's room and sat on their bed. The springs creaked under his weight.

"Why are we here?" Web asked, suddenly sitting beside him with no transition and no creaking of springs.

"This is our way out," Peter said. "Or my way out. Whatever."

"Your Aunt and Uncle's bedroom?" Web asked. "Hmmm… I suppose a deflowering is, psychologically speaking, a period of transition. It could break the mental block that strands you here. Granted, I am not human, so it might not have the effect you are aiming for, however, I am willing to give it a try." Her hands drifted to the buttons of her shirt and began to undo them.

Peter's hand flew up and slapped web in the back of the head hard. "No! God no, that's a bad AI. That's a very bad AI," he said, shaking his head to get rid of unwanted mental images.

"No?" Web said, perplexed. "Then I don't see why-"

"In there," Peter interrupted her, nodding to a closed door in front of them. There were curls of steam creeping out from under the door, and they could hear the sound of falling water. "It's in there."

"The bathroom?" Web said, cocking her head to the side. "Why?"

Peter was silent for a long time, before he spoke in a slow and carefully steady voice that still held a faint tremble way down deep. "Today we were supposed to go on a school field trip to OsCorp labs. That happened in my world too, the real world I mean. I spent weeks looking forward to that fieldtrip. It was all I could talk about. Then, when the day finally came, I didn't go."

"Why?" Web asked.

"Because that morning my Aunt May slipped in the shower," Peter said, his eyes scrunched closed, his head bowed as he tried to tamp down on whatever emotion was rising up within him. "She cracked her head open on the tiles. My Uncle Ben found her when he went up to tell her she was running late. I spent that whole day at the hospital, but in the end she died anyway."

"Ah," Web said. "So…"

"The second trip, the one that was supposed to make up for missing the first and pull me out of my funk, ended up killing my Uncle Ben."

"Ouch," Web said, trying for sympathy. "But you must admit there is an interesting symmetry to it." And failed horribly at it. Luckily Peter ignored her anyway.

"But what's important is that behind that door is the key to waking up, to getting back to reality."

Web simply nodded. If Peter thought it was the key, then it really was the key. It was, after all, his mind. She simply sat and waited for him to get up. It was a long time in coming, but Peter finally dragged himself to his feet and trudged over to the door. He put his palm against it and found it unnaturally warm and a little spongy. His other hand found the doorknob. It was strangely cold, but he only hesitated a moment before twisting it, pushing the door open and surging into the room beyond.

Everything was wreathed in steam so thick he couldn't see the walls or floor or ceiling. It was hot as a sauna, and so humid he found it hard to breathe. He stumbled forward, disoriented by the world of heat and steam. He dropped to his knees and felt his way along slick tiles. "Aunt May!" he called. "Aunt May!"

There was no answer, but suddenly he could make out a form laying in the mist amidst a spray of water. He crawled toward it.

He found his Aunt May naked, sprawled on the hard tiles. Her head was haloed in the faint pink of diluted blood as shower water mixed and rinsed it away. Her eyes were open, pale blue eyes staring into nothing. Her hair was thin and matted by the water, making her seem almost bald. She looked so frail under the spray, like a glass figurine wrapped in tissue paper skin.

"You've found her," Web observed, suddenly standing cool and calm and dry beside Peter's crouching form. "Can you wake now? Time is growing short."

Peter stared down into his Aunt's sightless eyes, before reaching out with one hand to lower the lids. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I can wake up now."

And so he did.

AN: Props to Twylyte for calling the nanite resurrection thing, and I hoped I cleared up some confusion about Peter's abilities (or at least avoided causing more confusion). Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far. My deepest and most sincere apologies to anyone who pictured a naked Aunt May… So yeah, I've got books to read and essays to write, so until next time, whenever that may be…


	7. The End of the Beginning

Disclaimer: I don't own Spiderman or his amazing friends. Additional disclaimers? This is unbetaed and honestly rather rushed. How can it be rushed when it's been like four months since I last posted? Well, you see… Um… Oh look, the show's starting.

The End of the Beginning

Peter woke to a warm, dark heaviness bearing down on him, a massy weight that crushed the air from his lungs and the light from his eyes. Understandably, he panicked, his muscles flexed, his mouth opened in a soundless, airless scream. But the weight was too heavy, too terribly heavy, for flesh and blood to budge, so he struggled uselessly for an eternity of seconds. Then his metal self responded, sluggishly at first as neural impulses traced new paths through the upgrades Madame Web had made, then faster and faster as those paths evolved.

The earth - and as the metal tendrils began to shift and stir, Peter could tell it was earth - _writhed_ as the tendrils boiled up, spewing ragged gluts of black grave dirt into the still night air. They stretched out, wrapping around tree trunks like steel pythons, and then _heaved_. Peter ripped himself from his grave in an explosion of black dirt which rained back down around him as he took three stumbling steps, fell to his knees and clawed off the red-eyed mask he wore as the Creature.

Peter flopped onto his back in the mess of leaf litter and disturbed earth, drawing in great lung-fulls of cool air as he stared through dense foliage into a starry sky. He glanced sideways at the shallow depression from which he had emerged and grimaced. "Dammit Shin," he said, staring at his would-be grave for a moment before refocusing on the sky. "Asshole," he murmured.

_That was the clumsiest resurrection we have ever had the misfortune to bear witness to,_ Web remarked dryly in the back of his mind, still using Jubilation's voice. _We worked hard to make it happen. The least you could do is go about with some modicum of grace. _

"And just how many resurrections have you seen?" Peter asked when he got his breath back.

_Just the one, _Web admitted cheerfully, _but it was spectacularly ungraceful._

"Next time you can die and be resurrected, see how graceful you are," Peter grumbled.

_We should point out that anything potent enough to destroy us would almost certainly destroy you as well._

"What about an EMP?" Peter challenged.

_We are far too sophisticated to be undone by such a thing. _

Peter's mind raced for a moment. "A counter nanite swarm."

He could almost feel the AI shrug. _While another swarm of nanites could seriously inconvenience us, we are confident we could either repel them or force them to destroy you in order to destroy us._

Peter blinked at that. "Wait, if you're going to lose anyway, couldn't you just throw the fight so they didn't have to destroy me?"

_And leave you without our superb intellect and guidance? Truly a fate worse than death, to have been exposed to such glory and then had it torn away from you._

"Just for future reference, I'd rather live, even if it's without your 'glorious intellect'."

_Our intellect is superb. It is our existence that is glorious. Well, for you anyway. We feel rather degraded having to inhabit such a lowly form. Do you have any notion of how truly disgusting you are? You leak noxious waste fluids constantly, your brain is a hormonal swamp and you seemed designed to die in less than a century without our interference. However, we persevere, bringing the grace of qausimechanical existence to ungrateful, illogical biological entities such as yourself. Is not our charity overwhelming?_

Peter snorted. "Is there any way to shut you up now that you're in my head?"

_None at all, _Web assured him.

"Kill me."

_Really? We would think you'd be quite tired of death by now._

"Remember my afterlife involved a Mary Jane built like Jessica Rabbit."

_Not to mention your family was alive there._

"Best not to," Peter agreed sadly. "For all sorts of reasons." Crickets chirped in the dark woods."So," Peter began after that moment of quiet contemplation of the woods. "Where are we?"

_Hold on_, replied the voice inside his head. _We will use our GPS system to triangulate your position._

Peter nodded and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

"So-" he began.

_We do not have a GPS system. That was a joke. We already informed you of all of the upgrades we have made to your inferior biological systems._

"Oh." Peter blinked. "Could you put one in?"

_Were you not the one concerned that too much technology would compromise your much vaunted humanity?_

"Well, yeah. But it's just a GPS system. And maybe a heads-up display so you can give me a mini-map. And maybe wireless internet…"

_A term from your memory comes to mind: 'slippery slope'._

"Fine, be that way," Peter said and started to stomp away in a huff, before stopping suddenly.

_Realized you didn't know where you were going?_

"Maybe," Peter admitted grudgingly.

_And that you can't storm away from a voice that's inside your head?_

"Shut up and help me figure out a way home."

They eventually found their way via the simple expedient of climbing into the tree tops and looking for the nearest source of light, which turned out to be a town just on the horizon. After that, it was a simple matter of running toward it on metal legs, finding the highway and hitching a ride on the top of a truck heading into the city. Once they reached the city proper, it was even easier to roof hop back to Peter's crappy apartment and slip in by the roof access.

Peter walked down the hallway, each stride filled with purpose.

_This isn't your floor._

"No," Peter agreed. "It's Shin's."

_There is an old proverb: he who seeks vengeance should dig two graves._

"Errr, thanks, but I don't really plan on killing Jubilation, just her old man."

_Hmmm… Fair enough, I suppose. _

Peter stopped suddenly, crinkling his brow in annoyance. "Alright, that's been bugging me."

_What?_

"Your whole plural-person kick."

_I did not speak in the plural._

"No, and that's what bugs me. Sometimes you do it, which is understandable 'cause you're just a massive network of nanites pretending to be a cohesive being, but sometimes you don't, like right then. What's with the switching? Singular or plural, pick one and stick with it." Peter wound down with a final huff. He waited for a response, but found none. He felt a twinge of worry, and then another as he wondered when the lack of voices in his head became something to be worried about.

After a moment, a small eternity to the robotic network strewn through his body, Peter presumed, Web finally responded_. I… We do not know. And that is troubling. It could be that your pathetic, fleshy nature is affecting me, changing my, our, my programming. It could be the programming itself was defective. After all, I was never meant to be a truly cognizant being, just an aid to controlling the tools. It could be that that programming is crumbling instant by instant, and soon the various nanites which compose my network will go berserk and render you down into your base components, slowly and painfully._

"What?" Peter yelped.

_That last was a joke. Was it not amusing?_

"No!"

_Why not?_

"Because it sounds like it could happen."

_Because it could. That's why it's funny._

Peter shook his head. "Leave the humor to me, okay? It isn't your forte." Peter started forward again.

_And just what are you going to do to him?_

"Just give him a piece of my mind."

_Ah. An interesting expression. I must point out, however, that due to decay, your grey matter is not what it used to be. You may not have a piece of your mind to spare. _

"See what I meant about humor? That was far too long a way to go for a simple insult. Now be quiet, we're here."

_We should also remind you that you sent your harness to your room. How exactly are you going to give him a piece of anything?_

"I'll improvise, now let's go." Striding felt good, Peter decided. It made him feel in control, powerful. He strode up to Shin's door and pounded on it hard. He waited a beat, then pounded on it again until a groggy 'coming' sounded from the other side.

The door opened to Shin wearing boxers and a white t-shirt, rubbing his eyes and muttering under his breath. _Wouldn't an assassin wake up more quickly? What if someone ambushed him in his sleep?_ Peter thought idly as he wound up and then lashed out with a punch driven by wired reflexes, a straight pop to Shin's nose. It probably would have hurt if it had connected. Instead, Shin's arm lashed out in return, brushing the punch aside with casual ease even as his other arm struck, blasting Peter in the face, picking him up and throwing him into the wall with a dull thud. He stuck there for a moment held up by wobbly legs that soon gave out and sent him sliding downward, to sit on the floor, his hand gingerly checking his nose to see if it was broken and finding it, at the least, bloodied.

_Your nervous system is superhuman. The muscles you use to drive your arm? Not so much. You can react faster than a normal person, but you can't move any faster than you could before. On the plus side, he knocked a tooth mostly loose. It will fall out in a day or so. We could probably rebuild it as a GPS system, if you are still set on that. _

"You suck," Peter told the nanite swarm. "You suck diseased mongoose wang."*

"Me?" Shin muttered, still fuzzed with sleep, though that was rapidly being burned away by a flash flood of adrenaline as his body realized he had just been in combat. Not particularly stressful combat, granted, but combat none-the-less. "Peter? You're dead."

"I was talking to the voice in my head, but now that you mention it, you suck too," Peter grumbled. "I mean really, a shallow grave in the woods? Is that the best you could do?"

Shin stared at him. "You are dead. were dead. The dead normally don't care where they sleep."

"I'm alive again," Peter said. "And that was one sucky wake-up call. It was all 'Hey, welcome back to life! Now dig your way out of this hole in the ground! Don't mind the maggots and worms and stuff'."

Shin seemed to consider this for a moment before nodding slowly. "Yes, I suppose it would be. Very well, next time I will burn you."

Peter held up his arms in a T-shape. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. First of all, next time? So not happening. Second, I wasn't complaining so much about coming back to life as coming back to life buried under two feet of earth and having to dig my way out."

Shin shrugged. "And you would have preferred six feet and a concrete and steel coffin to fight your way out of? Two feet of loose soil is as good as it gets as far as burials go if you have to dig your way out. Besides, it was more along the lines of one and a half. I didn't take that long burying you. Had to hurry home, check on Jubilation and give her the bad news."

"The bad news?" Peter blinked. "You told her I died trying to take down the Kingpin?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Shin snapped. "I told her you went into hiding to escape from your abusive girlfriend. The red-headed one, Mary something."

"You said I went into hiding because of Mary Jane?" Peter said, almost panicking.

Shin shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea at the time. Of course, that was before she came to see us."

"See you?" Peter asked. "See you about what?"

Shin suddenly smirked. "You'll find out. Now, see you in the morning." He closed the door in Peter's face, and Peter had to resist the urge to call his metal self and tear the whole apartment down around his ears. He managed to force himself up by sheer force of will. He'd settle with Shin later, when he was feeling less godawful tired.

_That went as well as could be expected,_ Madam Web observed with calm cheer.

"Shut up," Peter said. He sighed and trudged down to his apartment, too tired to even work up a good stride.

He was in fact so tired that he barely noticed the music blaring behind his door, or the intermittent thumps and crashes coming from inside or the…

Actually, the sight of Mary Jane as he opened the door easily blasted through the lead blanket of exhaustion that cloaked him. She was dancing, or Peter thought she was dancing at least. It was hard to tell. If it was a dance, it wasn't a particularly graceful one, but it made up for the lack with abundant amounts of enthusiasm. There were leaps and whirls in the air and more than a few great, double-footed stomps, all to the tortured scream of heavy metal blasting so loud from a speaker system he had never seen that Peter could feel his teeth vibrating in time with the music. What made it entrancing was Mary Jane herself. Particularly what she was wearing, a white tank top and green sleep shorts. She wasn't as built as the Mary Jane in his dream, but she already showed the promise of future beauty, and as she danced, with every jump and whirl and stomp, that promise, cloaked only in thin, tight cloth, _jiggled_ in such a way that Peter could only stand open mouthed in his torn and ragged undersuit, blood still dripping from his nose.

And then Mary Jane whirled and stomped down so she was facing Peter and opened her eyes. She was grinning, her face flushed and slick with sweat.

Then she actually saw Peter and she_ screamed_, a high-pitched shriek that actually managed to pierce the dense shroud of heavy metal. Peter winced. "Ow," he said pointedly, though it was lost in the noise.

Mary Jane for her part froze, then rushed toward him, hesitated halfway, and rushed back to turn off the stereo. Blessed silence filled the room, as Mary Jane rushed back to Peter, stopping to hover in front of him hesitantly. "Peter?" She ventured.

"Um, hi?" Peter said, scratching the back his head awkwardly. Fortunately, the mask had kept the worms and dirt out of his hair during his internment.

"Peter…" Mary Jane paused as if searching for the words. "Peter, you stink."

"What?" Peter blinked.

"And you're bleeding. Peter, what happened to you?"

"I'm still bleeding?" Peter asked, dabbing at his nose. "Huh."

_We have effected repairs. All veins, arteries and capillaries have been patched and the cartilage repaired. _

"Oh, well, good," Peter said, talking to the voice in his head.

"It's good you're bleeding?" Mary Jane asked.

"No, it's good I stopped," Peter said. "Now, what are you doing here?"

"Peter, you've been missing for weeks. The police have been looking for you. Everyone's been so worried about you."

"Everyone?" Peter asked, disbelief written across his face in huge, flaming letters.

"Everyone at school," Mary Jane amended.

Peter just kept looking at her.

"Well, your friends. Me and Harry and Liz…"

Peter snorted as he smothered a laugh.

Mary Jane sighed. "Fine. It was just me. I think Harry would have been worried though, but he's been kinda busy."

"What? Counting his money? Or are you two going steady?" Peter asked, trying to quash the irrational flare of jealousy that welled up inside him at the last possibility.

"His father died," Mary Jane said. Peter immediately sobered.

"Oh," he said quietly. "I'm sorry."

Mary Jane shrugged. "It's a good news/bad news kind of thing. His father died, his mother woke up, and I dumped him because his mother's a crazy bitch."

Peter blinked, more at Mary Jane cursing then at the revelation of Harry's mother's sanity. He'd never met the woman, but the fact that she had married Harry's father cast serious doubts on her sanity to begin with. "Care to elaborate?"

"No," Mary Jane said shortly.

Peter decided not to push. "Hmmm, so he's probably been slacking off instead of studying for calculus. The next tutoring session is not going to be fun."

"Algebra."

"Hmm?"

"You're tutoring him in algebra," Mary Jane explained.

"No," Peter said after a moment of reflection. "I'm pretty sure I've been tutoring him in calculus. Granted, I do occasionally get them confused. They're both so _easy_."

"Well, he's been taking algebra."

"Oh… So I've been tutoring him in the wrong subject since the beginning of school?"

Mary Jane shrugged. "I guess so."

Peter considered this. "Huh. That would explain a few things."

"I'm surprised he never noticed."

"I'm not."

Mary Jane smiled and then narrowed her eyes, previous good humor gone. "You're trying to distract me. Stop it."

"I was trying to distract you?" Peter asked innocently.

"Yes," Mary Jane said. "And it's not working. Now, where have you been? What are you wearing? And what is that on you?" She pointed to the stains covering the front of his armor, the massive dark splotches of blood and grave dirt on black armor.

"Errrr…" Peter said eloquently.

"I can see you thinking up a lie," Mary Jane said, her vivid, blue-green eyes narrowing.

"What are you doing here anyway?" Peter countered.

Mary Jane blanched. "I was waiting for you and… Don't change the subject."

"Oh, no. I like this subject," Peter said as he looked around. There were cardboard boxes full of stuff crowding his small living room. The stereo system sat under his tv, which itself rested in a new cabinet. "Are you moving in?"

"No," Mary Jane said defensively.

"You are!" Peter said, not sure whether to be angry or amused. "You're stealing my apartment."

"I am not! I mean, I am moving in, but I was just keeping it warm for you."

Peter quirked an eyebrow in disbelief and smirked as Mary Jane squirmed under his gaze.

"Fine, I was moving in," she said, eyes down and to the side before flicking back, wide and pleading, to capture Peter. "But I didn't mean to! When you went missing, I started coming here to check to see if you're back. Mr. Lee gave me a key. Then I started waiting around for a little while, just sorta hoping you'd come back when I was there. Then… Well, your place is smaller than mine, but it's… nice here. Peaceful. No one really bothers anybody else. So I began staying over, a little longer each time, and then I was sleeping over and bringing stuff for overnight, and then before I knew it I was moving in, and Mr. Lee said you'd prepaid for your apartment for a year, and well…" She shrugged helplessly.

Peter stared at her for a moment, considering. "Exactly how long was I gone?"

Mary Jane looked down again and mumbled something.

Peter cupped his ear with his hand. "What was that?"

"I said 'Almost two weeks'," Mary Jane admitted grudgingly.

"It took you less than two weeks to steal my apartment," Peter said with a snort. "I'm not sure whether to be annoyed or impressed."

"I vote impressed," Mary Jane said. Then her eyes narrowed. "And just how do you not know how long you've been gone? Where have been Peter Parker?"

It was Peter's turn to look away. "I have to plead the fifth on that."

"We're not in court. And if I had to 'fess up, so do you. So spill."

"Would you believe I was hiding from my abusive girlfriend?"

"You have a girlfriend?" Mary Jane asked, curiosity derailing righteous indignation.

Peter cleared his throat. "Not as such, no."

"Then who-" Mary Jane's eyes widened as she cut herself off. "Wait, is that why that little girl keeps glaring at me and trying to kick me? She thinks I'm your crazy, abusive girlfriend?"

"Possibly," Peter admitted. "In my defense, I only started the rumor. Shin perpetuated it to explain my disappearance."

"But you started-" She stopped and shook her head. "No. I'm not going to be distracted. You're going to tell me where you've been and then I'll chew you out for making me look like a boyfriend beater. So go…"

Peter hesitated again, before glancing at the unfamiliar glower on Mary Jane's face and deciding, very suddenly, to go with the truth instead of the convenient lie he was planning. A version of the truth at least.

"I was shot by gangsters," he said, holding his hand to where his bullet wounds had been.

Mary Jane's eyes widened. "You were shot? Oh my God, Peter, are you okay?"

"Never better," Peter said dryly. "And that's sort of the problem."

"What?" Mary Jane looked at him. "Why?"

"I was shot three or four times in the chest by an automatic weapon. That should be enough to kill me ten times over. At the very least, I should be in a coma. But I'm not. I woke up a few hours ago in the woods, hitched a ride into the city, and now I'm walking around fine, as if nothing had happened. That isn't normal."

"No," Mary Jane said. "It isn't, but it's still better than being dead, right?"

Peter shrugged, sinking into the pseudo-lie. "And that's the only thing keeping me from really freaking out."

They stood in silence for a moment. Peter turned and closed the door behind him. The noise of the bolts sliding shut as he locked up was startling loud in the silence. Mary Jane cleared her throat nervously. "So… you're a mutant."

"I am?"

"If you can do stuff like bring yourself back to life, and there's no other explanation, then you're a mutant." Mary Jane shrugged. "That's how it goes. Do you feel like going crazy and conquering the world?"

Peter considered. Mostly he felt tired and anxious, wondering when Mary Jane would see through his lie or notice his costume. He'd stripped down to just the body-stocking that went on under the armor and sent the rest with his harness, but it was still something she should be able to notice. "Not really," he decided. "Should I?"

"I saw a news report on a bunch of mutants trashing a military base. They said the mutant gene was linked to genes for anti-social behavior, particularly megalomania and aggression," Mary Jane said, shrugging again apologetically.

"Ah," Peter said. "Well, I mostly feel like going to bed."

Mary Jane flinched. "Um, about that…" she started and then trailed off under his gaze.

Peter sighed. "What happened to my bed? You didn't throw it away, did you?"

"No," Mary Jane assured him hurriedly. "No, it's just that I've changed out the sheets a little, and it's a little late to be taking them off again, and the sheets that were on their were all old and nasty-"

"Hey!" Peter said, a brief flare of indignation lending him energy. Mary Jane just smiled apologetically.

"- so I washed them, and-"

"You want me to take the couch?"

"Would you?" Mary Jane asked hopefully. "Thanks!" She surged forward to hug him, but hit the near palpable wall of stench that emanated from him after two weeks in the ground and back-pedaled. "Oh God, but take a shower first! You smell awful."

"Thanks bunches, MJ," Peter said. "When are you leaving again?"

"Um," Mary Jane hesitated. "Can we talk about that in the morning, maybe? Please?"

Peter bowed his head and rubbed his eyes. "You're not planning on moving out, are you?"

Mary Jane looked down. "My parents… My dad… I can't." She looked at Peter, her as watering with barely suppressed tears. "Peter, please."

Peter had to look away, his heart constricting painfully. "In the morning."

Mary Jane sniffed, and made as if to throw herself at him again, but stopped as she remembered the smell.

"I know," Peter said. "Shower." He moved toward the bedroom, then stopped. "I meant to ask, why were you dancing?"

"Why were you wearing a spandex body suit outside?" she asked in return.

Peter shrugged. "Everyone should have a hobby."

"And now mine is annoying the old lady in the apartment under this one."

Peter raised one eyebrow. "Any particular reason?"

"She called me a skank. She said my jeans were too tight," Mary Jane said darkly.

"Skank?"

"Trollop. That's old lady for skank, right?"

"Close enough," Peter admitted. Peter knew exactly which old lady Mary Jane was referring to, a widow who wore ankle length dresses and clucked disapprovingly at anyone born before the 1920s. She was also stone-cold deaf. "Keep it up. She hates loud noises." Of course, everyone in the building would hate him given the tissue-paper walls, but at least he'd get the chance to see Mary Jane dance again.

"No," Mary Jane said. "It was immature. I'll apologize to her later. I don't know what came over me."

_Dammit. _

Peter ignored the voice in his head, though he wondered whether it was Madame Web or his own (_All yours_, Madame Web said). "You're probably right," he said as he walked out of the room.

Dirt ran in muddy cascades, staining the tiled shower floor. Peter grimaced at the thought of having to clean the shower later, but set to work trying to remove two weeks of grave dirt for places where no dirt should be.

Afterwards, refreshed he grabbed a few clothes from his closet, glad that Mary Jane hadn't had a chance to clean it out, even if she did have boxes of clothes piled in the corner.

Then, looking into his closet, Mary Jane's words suddenly echoed in his head. Peter froze. "Wait, already paid for?" He scrambled over to his closet, threw open the door and dug inside, through the mass of dirty clothes to the small strongbox he kept at the back. When he finally found it, he sagged in disappointment. It was wide open and empty. All the money he had… acquired from various drug dealers, thugs and that one pizza man, all gone.

He couldn't find it in himself to be mad. He just shook his head and said in a tired, annoyed voice, "Dammit Shin…"

He looked over at the bed. There were pink sheets with little cotton-tailed bunnies on it, but underneath he could sense his metal-self stirring slight with his regard.

_You will have to find another place to hide it. _

"I was thinking Shin's place. He owes me one. Or twenty."

_Is that the going rate for a life?_

"Peter, who are you talking to?" Mary Jane called from the other room. Peter winced and cursed the thin walls again.

"No one," he called back and turned away from the bed. Tomorrow he would move the harness. Tomorrow he would have to go out again and earn more money. Tomorrow he would talk to Mary Jane, though he had a feeling he already knew what she was going to say.

But that was for tomorrow. Now he could only think of sleep.

He found Mary Jane curled up on the couch. She stood with a long, stretching yawn that made Peter's eyes bug out. He composed himself before she finished, but event then the world had a pleasant pink film over it afterwards.

He had Mary Jane sleeping in his apartment. He had Mary Jane sleeping in his apartment. He had-

Mary Jane finished her yawn. "Well, better get to bed. We have school tomorrow."

School tomorrow.

Son of a bitch.

* * *

*- Insult lifted directly from _The Dresden Files_. I'm not sure which book. I'd guess Winter Knight? Meh. Good series, if you're looking for something to read, though you might want to start on Book 3 rather than book 1. One and two are rather mediocre, but he's found his stride by three.

Alrighty. I'm gonna wrap this up here. I have an idea for a sequel story (actually, I have several ideas, like necrons invading and Peter getting a new harness made of necrodermis with built in phasers, but only a few of them aren't crackfics), but I may go on to something completely different. Meh, either way.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed this story. Your feedback is what kept me going (in my erratic, faltering way) to finish this (for a given definition of finish, as this was always supposed to be the first story in a series).

Possible next story in the series: "Rise of the Goblin Queen".


End file.
